Monday, December 13, 2010

Empathy, Schmempathy

We've been trying to teach Zane about empathy, or at least paying attention to the feelings of others. It's been slow going, to say the least. On the one hand, he seems to understand that when someone is crying you are supposed to help them. For instance, I've seen him approach a peer when they are crying and pat them on the shoulder and tell them, "It's okay." Except for the fact that, occasionally, Zane IS the reason the child might crying in the first place, I think that is pretty good.

But this empathy training doesn't always work out the way we want it to work.

"Zane, I need you to pick up all of your super heroes and put them back in the bucket," I said this afternoon.

"No," was the response.

"Zane, Mama spent all morning cleaning up the house and if you don't pick up your toys I will be very sad," I tell him.

"That's too bad," was the reply. Hmmm. So much for that!

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, I've tried that "Mommy will be sad stuff". Doesn't work over here either!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was the "too bad" that got me--I say that to him when he tells me that he doesn't want to do something.

    ReplyDelete

I welcome comments, but reserve the right to correct your spelling because I am OCD about it!