Empathy - learning it
sistergoddesselli
Hello everyone -
I am looking for ideas and direction.
My 8 year old son was in and out of the hospital all during his first five years of life, while his life expectancy hung by a thread. After 11 heart surgeries and several other procedures. He's doing physically great now. In December of 2008 we started home-schooling, then un-schooling last month.
I share that early story about his life because sometimes I wonder if he doesn't really understand empathy and some other social skills because he was so sick when he was young and didn't have the opportunity to play with other kids. And, his dad and I were so stressed by the situation that we indulged him and had little energy to support his learning.
He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
I feel numb when he does something mean. And, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I talk to him about it. In the past, sometimes I might have punished him, although, if you'd ask my daughter, she'd say I never punished him at all.
Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
On the other hand, my daughter, 11, is a pleasure to be around.
Part of the reason I took him out of school was to get a handle on this so that he could have an easier time with other kids.
Sometimes his dad will explode in anger, yelling, and grabbing him and hauling him up to his bed room, tossing him into the room. This doesn't happen often. It usually happens when I have come to the end of my ability to handle a situation and my son is yelling at me.
My son used to hit me, but now he doesn't.
We've gone to counseling, and the counselor says that he's fine.
Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
I would love to find some other moms who have worked through something like this. I would love to hear their ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
Elli
I am looking for ideas and direction.
My 8 year old son was in and out of the hospital all during his first five years of life, while his life expectancy hung by a thread. After 11 heart surgeries and several other procedures. He's doing physically great now. In December of 2008 we started home-schooling, then un-schooling last month.
I share that early story about his life because sometimes I wonder if he doesn't really understand empathy and some other social skills because he was so sick when he was young and didn't have the opportunity to play with other kids. And, his dad and I were so stressed by the situation that we indulged him and had little energy to support his learning.
He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
I feel numb when he does something mean. And, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I talk to him about it. In the past, sometimes I might have punished him, although, if you'd ask my daughter, she'd say I never punished him at all.
Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
On the other hand, my daughter, 11, is a pleasure to be around.
Part of the reason I took him out of school was to get a handle on this so that he could have an easier time with other kids.
Sometimes his dad will explode in anger, yelling, and grabbing him and hauling him up to his bed room, tossing him into the room. This doesn't happen often. It usually happens when I have come to the end of my ability to handle a situation and my son is yelling at me.
My son used to hit me, but now he doesn't.
We've gone to counseling, and the counselor says that he's fine.
Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
I would love to find some other moms who have worked through something like this. I would love to hear their ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
Elli
Tamara Griesel
I'm only asking because I have a family member who had a large number of heart surgeries as a child (and an adult) and has neurological differences as a result...In his case, memory issues and a tendency not to notice social cues. Is it possible that some of your son's difficulties relating to others and managing his temper could be related to periods of oxygen deprivation during surgery?
If so, have you looked into some of the social skills education methods used to help children with nonverbal learning disability (My son's diagnosis), Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism?
My son is the same age as yours and has, for unknown reasons (probably genetic) difficulty managing his temper and knowing how to express anger safely. We are just beginning to work with a new therapist (and unschooling parent!) to help him meet his own goals. We are also looking into social skills training groups for him but can't afford both just yet.
I also found a lot of the ideas in The Explosive Child helpful. It's especially helpful to me in that it has as a basic premise that children WANT to get along with adults and each other, but that some don't have the skills to deal with strong emotions. Rather than the assumption common to a lot of books about angry children that all of children's "bad" behavior is calculated.
Tamara
If so, have you looked into some of the social skills education methods used to help children with nonverbal learning disability (My son's diagnosis), Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism?
My son is the same age as yours and has, for unknown reasons (probably genetic) difficulty managing his temper and knowing how to express anger safely. We are just beginning to work with a new therapist (and unschooling parent!) to help him meet his own goals. We are also looking into social skills training groups for him but can't afford both just yet.
I also found a lot of the ideas in The Explosive Child helpful. It's especially helpful to me in that it has as a basic premise that children WANT to get along with adults and each other, but that some don't have the skills to deal with strong emotions. Rather than the assumption common to a lot of books about angry children that all of children's "bad" behavior is calculated.
Tamara
--- On Mon, 3/16/09, sistergoddesselli <elinorsparks@...> wrote:
From: sistergoddesselli <elinorsparks@...>
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Empathy - learning it
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, March 16, 2009, 5:44 PM
Hello everyone -
I am looking for ideas and direction.
My 8 year old son was in and out of the hospital all during his first five years of life, while his life expectancy hung by a thread. After 11 heart surgeries and several other procedures. He's doing physically great now. In December of 2008 we started home-schooling, then un-schooling last month.
I share that early story about his life because sometimes I wonder if he doesn't really understand empathy and some other social skills because he was so sick when he was young and didn't have the opportunity to play with other kids. And, his dad and I were so stressed by the situation that we indulged him and had little energy to support his learning.
He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
I feel numb when he does something mean. And, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I talk to him about it. In the past, sometimes I might have punished him, although, if you'd ask my daughter, she'd say I never punished him at all.
Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
On the other hand, my daughter, 11, is a pleasure to be around.
Part of the reason I took him out of school was to get a handle on this so that he could have an easier time with other kids.
Sometimes his dad will explode in anger, yelling, and grabbing him and hauling him up to his bed room, tossing him into the room. This doesn't happen often. It usually happens when I have come to the end of my ability to handle a situation and my son is yelling at me.
My son used to hit me, but now he doesn't.
We've gone to counseling, and the counselor says that he's fine.
Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
I would love to find some other moms who have worked through something like this. I would love to hear their ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
Elli
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Meredith
--- In [email protected], "sistergoddesselli" <elinorsparks@...> wrote:
Ray was like this to some extent when he was younger - more the physical side than the verbal side, he was quick to react physically and in ways that were pretty over-the-top.
Some of what you are describing comes from a lack of social skills, for sure - but social skills are like reading in the sense that there has to be a degree of "readiness" before they can be learned, and there's a wiiiiiiide range of ages when kids are ready - some kids are ready to learn social skills at 4, others not until they're teens.
Another aspect may be impulse control. That's not something learned so much as it develops based on a combination of factors. Again, some kids have more natural impulse control earlier than others - but No One has very good impulse control under stress, so anything you can do to help smooth the way for your guy, reduce the overall level of frustration in his life, will help. Your comment that he's rough with the pets makes me think of impulse control - he can *want* to be kind to them but still be rough.
We found it vitally important for Ray to have an adult friend with him in any social situation for a loooooong time. An adult friend could be a parent or not, but the important part was that the adult was there to hang out and play with Ray, not to "supervise". That way someone could keep an eye out for any needs or frustrations and address them right away - other kids can't do that. When Ray's needs were being met promptly (and at best proactively) he had the ability to be marvelously kind and sympathetic to others. If not, his needs were in the way of his own empathy - he could only take care of Himself, not others, if you see what I mean?
We found it helped enormously with Ray to only take him out socially if he was in a good "space" - not hungry or tired or already frustrated - And there was an adult willing to be his buddy. If we didn't have anyone lined up, and George and I were too tired to be Ray's pal, we didn't go. While this might seem counter-intuitive (you want him to learn social skills, but are cutting back social opportunities) we found it started to pay off sooner than we expected because overall more of Ray's social encounters were successful. That gave all of us the opportunity to learn what worked for him - we got better at facilitating and He got better at knowing when to turn to us for help, rather than lashing out. We all got more confident, and Ray felt better about himself. That last meant he had more energy available for others' needs, too.
It was also important to put extra energy into meeting his needs promptly (and as I said before, proactively best of all) at home so that his overall frustration was lower. Again, it boosted his self confidence and led to him having more impulse control and more access to his own empathy. It was challenging to get around the idea that we were giving him "extra" attention - he took a Lot of attention and care for awhile - but ultimately we realized that he simply had More of a need for our care.
Ray's 15 now, and just a couple days ago I got to see him play "grown up facilitator" to a younger child who was crying and needed some help problem solving with a group of other kids. *Ray* didn't need any help at all - he knew how to help someone else deal with his frustrations and negotiate a complex social situation. He has worlds of compassion to share, now.
---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)
>> He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.<snip>
>
> Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.*******************
Ray was like this to some extent when he was younger - more the physical side than the verbal side, he was quick to react physically and in ways that were pretty over-the-top.
Some of what you are describing comes from a lack of social skills, for sure - but social skills are like reading in the sense that there has to be a degree of "readiness" before they can be learned, and there's a wiiiiiiide range of ages when kids are ready - some kids are ready to learn social skills at 4, others not until they're teens.
Another aspect may be impulse control. That's not something learned so much as it develops based on a combination of factors. Again, some kids have more natural impulse control earlier than others - but No One has very good impulse control under stress, so anything you can do to help smooth the way for your guy, reduce the overall level of frustration in his life, will help. Your comment that he's rough with the pets makes me think of impulse control - he can *want* to be kind to them but still be rough.
We found it vitally important for Ray to have an adult friend with him in any social situation for a loooooong time. An adult friend could be a parent or not, but the important part was that the adult was there to hang out and play with Ray, not to "supervise". That way someone could keep an eye out for any needs or frustrations and address them right away - other kids can't do that. When Ray's needs were being met promptly (and at best proactively) he had the ability to be marvelously kind and sympathetic to others. If not, his needs were in the way of his own empathy - he could only take care of Himself, not others, if you see what I mean?
> Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.******************
We found it helped enormously with Ray to only take him out socially if he was in a good "space" - not hungry or tired or already frustrated - And there was an adult willing to be his buddy. If we didn't have anyone lined up, and George and I were too tired to be Ray's pal, we didn't go. While this might seem counter-intuitive (you want him to learn social skills, but are cutting back social opportunities) we found it started to pay off sooner than we expected because overall more of Ray's social encounters were successful. That gave all of us the opportunity to learn what worked for him - we got better at facilitating and He got better at knowing when to turn to us for help, rather than lashing out. We all got more confident, and Ray felt better about himself. That last meant he had more energy available for others' needs, too.
It was also important to put extra energy into meeting his needs promptly (and as I said before, proactively best of all) at home so that his overall frustration was lower. Again, it boosted his self confidence and led to him having more impulse control and more access to his own empathy. It was challenging to get around the idea that we were giving him "extra" attention - he took a Lot of attention and care for awhile - but ultimately we realized that he simply had More of a need for our care.
Ray's 15 now, and just a couple days ago I got to see him play "grown up facilitator" to a younger child who was crying and needed some help problem solving with a group of other kids. *Ray* didn't need any help at all - he knew how to help someone else deal with his frustrations and negotiate a complex social situation. He has worlds of compassion to share, now.
---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)
Meredith
Oops, forgot to toss out a great link:
http://danielleconger.organiclearning.org/spirited.html
Lots of great information there!
Meredith
http://danielleconger.organiclearning.org/spirited.html
Lots of great information there!
Meredith
Jet Lakey
Elli, i can relate to your situation and can probably offer some support on this. please feel free to email me offlist.
Jet Lakey
-live simply so others may simply live-
To: [email protected]
From: elinorsparks@...
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:44:57 +0000
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Empathy - learning it
Hello everyone -
I am looking for ideas and direction.
My 8 year old son was in and out of the hospital all during his first five years of life, while his life expectancy hung by a thread. After 11 heart surgeries and several other procedures. He's doing physically great now. In December of 2008 we started home-schooling, then un-schooling last month.
I share that early story about his life because sometimes I wonder if he doesn't really understand empathy and some other social skills because he was so sick when he was young and didn't have the opportunity to play with other kids. And, his dad and I were so stressed by the situation that we indulged him and had little energy to support his learning.
He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
I feel numb when he does something mean. And, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I talk to him about it. In the past, sometimes I might have punished him, although, if you'd ask my daughter, she'd say I never punished him at all.
Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
On the other hand, my daughter, 11, is a pleasure to be around.
Part of the reason I took him out of school was to get a handle on this so that he could have an easier time with other kids.
Sometimes his dad will explode in anger, yelling, and grabbing him and hauling him up to his bed room, tossing him into the room. This doesn't happen often. It usually happens when I have come to the end of my ability to handle a situation and my son is yelling at me.
My son used to hit me, but now he doesn't.
We've gone to counseling, and the counselor says that he's fine.
Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
I would love to find some other moms who have worked through something like this. I would love to hear their ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
Elli
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live�: Life without walls.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_032009
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jet Lakey
-live simply so others may simply live-
To: [email protected]
From: elinorsparks@...
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:44:57 +0000
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Empathy - learning it
Hello everyone -
I am looking for ideas and direction.
My 8 year old son was in and out of the hospital all during his first five years of life, while his life expectancy hung by a thread. After 11 heart surgeries and several other procedures. He's doing physically great now. In December of 2008 we started home-schooling, then un-schooling last month.
I share that early story about his life because sometimes I wonder if he doesn't really understand empathy and some other social skills because he was so sick when he was young and didn't have the opportunity to play with other kids. And, his dad and I were so stressed by the situation that we indulged him and had little energy to support his learning.
He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
I feel numb when he does something mean. And, I don't know what to do. Sometimes I talk to him about it. In the past, sometimes I might have punished him, although, if you'd ask my daughter, she'd say I never punished him at all.
Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
On the other hand, my daughter, 11, is a pleasure to be around.
Part of the reason I took him out of school was to get a handle on this so that he could have an easier time with other kids.
Sometimes his dad will explode in anger, yelling, and grabbing him and hauling him up to his bed room, tossing him into the room. This doesn't happen often. It usually happens when I have come to the end of my ability to handle a situation and my son is yelling at me.
My son used to hit me, but now he doesn't.
We've gone to counseling, and the counselor says that he's fine.
Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
I would love to find some other moms who have worked through something like this. I would love to hear their ideas and experiences.
Thanks!
Elli
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live�: Life without walls.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_032009
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Tamara Griesel
Meredith,
Thanks,
I'll be taking all that great advice to heart, too. I sometimes need to hear that kids grow and learn out of worrisome behaviors. Just yesterday I caught my son, who is usually extremely possessive of the "good computer" helping his three year old sister move a Roblox character around. (I think it was mine, it had on the hair ribbons).
Tamara
Thanks,
I'll be taking all that great advice to heart, too. I sometimes need to hear that kids grow and learn out of worrisome behaviors. Just yesterday I caught my son, who is usually extremely possessive of the "good computer" helping his three year old sister move a Roblox character around. (I think it was mine, it had on the hair ribbons).
Tamara
--- On Tue, 3/17/09, Meredith <meredith@...> wrote:
From: Meredith <meredith@...>
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Re: Empathy - learning it
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 10:21 PM
--- In unschoolingbasics@ yahoogroups. com, "sistergoddesselli" <elinorsparks@ ...> wrote:
>> He has struggled with social skills and has a particularly hard time with empathy. He is quick to say, out loud, that he "hates" another kid (especially a younger kid) and refuses to play with anyone he has decided he hates. He can be quick to get physical too. He can also be rough with pets.
>
<snip>
> Many a mother has spoken to me about not wanting her kids around him.
************ *******
Ray was like this to some extent when he was younger - more the physical side than the verbal side, he was quick to react physically and in ways that were pretty over-the-top.
Some of what you are describing comes from a lack of social skills, for sure - but social skills are like reading in the sense that there has to be a degree of "readiness" before they can be learned, and there's a wiiiiiiide range of ages when kids are ready - some kids are ready to learn social skills at 4, others not until they're teens.
Another aspect may be impulse control. That's not something learned so much as it develops based on a combination of factors. Again, some kids have more natural impulse control earlier than others - but No One has very good impulse control under stress, so anything you can do to help smooth the way for your guy, reduce the overall level of frustration in his life, will help. Your comment that he's rough with the pets makes me think of impulse control - he can *want* to be kind to them but still be rough.
We found it vitally important for Ray to have an adult friend with him in any social situation for a loooooong time. An adult friend could be a parent or not, but the important part was that the adult was there to hang out and play with Ray, not to "supervise". That way someone could keep an eye out for any needs or frustrations and address them right away - other kids can't do that. When Ray's needs were being met promptly (and at best proactively) he had the ability to be marvelously kind and sympathetic to others. If not, his needs were in the way of his own empathy - he could only take care of Himself, not others, if you see what I mean?
> Part of me wants to stay home with him and never go out, for fear of his behavior.
************ ******
We found it helped enormously with Ray to only take him out socially if he was in a good "space" - not hungry or tired or already frustrated - And there was an adult willing to be his buddy. If we didn't have anyone lined up, and George and I were too tired to be Ray's pal, we didn't go. While this might seem counter-intuitive (you want him to learn social skills, but are cutting back social opportunities) we found it started to pay off sooner than we expected because overall more of Ray's social encounters were successful. That gave all of us the opportunity to learn what worked for him - we got better at facilitating and He got better at knowing when to turn to us for help, rather than lashing out. We all got more confident, and Ray felt better about himself. That last meant he had more energy available for others' needs, too.
It was also important to put extra energy into meeting his needs promptly (and as I said before, proactively best of all) at home so that his overall frustration was lower. Again, it boosted his self confidence and led to him having more impulse control and more access to his own empathy. It was challenging to get around the idea that we were giving him "extra" attention - he took a Lot of attention and care for awhile - but ultimately we realized that he simply had More of a need for our care.
Ray's 15 now, and just a couple days ago I got to see him play "grown up facilitator" to a younger child who was crying and needed some help problem solving with a group of other kids. *Ray* didn't need any help at all - he knew how to help someone else deal with his frustrations and negotiate a complex social situation. He has worlds of compassion to share, now.
---Meredith (Mo 7, Ray 15)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
starwarsmum
Hi Elli,
Meredith had great advice!
The biggest thing for us I think was planning ahead of time when a playdate (or whatever it was) would end. It helped our son to know how long we were going to be out, to know that at 3pm we were leaving. Keeping playdates short (1 - 1 1/2 hours) worked way better for him - it's short enough that he didn't generally get hungry or too over-stimulated. It also helped to really watch for cues, for us to learn what he might be showing us before we saw anger, and help him to see it too. I only put him in group situations where I felt that I could be readily available to him if he were to need me, and where he felt comfortable with the other kids and parents. We started going to only small group functions, avoiding big classes for a while.
I have noticed that when my son is in a place of anger, the best I can do is love him, hug him, and probably take him home. Then when everything is settled down we discuss it together, on his lead.
Amy
Meredith had great advice!
The biggest thing for us I think was planning ahead of time when a playdate (or whatever it was) would end. It helped our son to know how long we were going to be out, to know that at 3pm we were leaving. Keeping playdates short (1 - 1 1/2 hours) worked way better for him - it's short enough that he didn't generally get hungry or too over-stimulated. It also helped to really watch for cues, for us to learn what he might be showing us before we saw anger, and help him to see it too. I only put him in group situations where I felt that I could be readily available to him if he were to need me, and where he felt comfortable with the other kids and parents. We started going to only small group functions, avoiding big classes for a while.
I have noticed that when my son is in a place of anger, the best I can do is love him, hug him, and probably take him home. Then when everything is settled down we discuss it together, on his lead.
Amy