Teens 45% less empathetic than a generation ago study shows/what is going on??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, look around you. Read the threads on this board. Look how people treat each other. Watch the rudeness on the roads, in the malls, etc. Those adults are raising those children who were talked about in the NPR piece.

Then turn on the news and you seen the violence and cruelty humans are capable of, as a general matter.

The conclusion in that piece is not surprising.

It is very sad.

This was my first thought, too. It's easy to say, "kids these days!" but look at how people treat each other on this board. We have a self-centered generation raising self-centered kids. It's particularly bad in DC, IMO. I seriously can't go to Target without being stunned by the behavior of other people. I'll say excuse me, and the person won't move. The other day, I was in line behind a woman who was apparently saving a spot for her husband while he shopped. So all of the sudden I'm behind this dude with a HUGE basket of groceries. I could go on and on. It's crazy. But I digress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Day care? Really? That gave me a chuckle. Day care has nothing to do with it.

A certain degree of empathy is inherent, but the rest is taught. I think it's more likely that you've got helicopter parents focusing their energy 100% on their kids, and the child grows up thinking s/he's the center of the universe.

I totally think its the helicopter parenting. We spoil our kids endlessly today and don't teach them to chin up on things. They grow up being the center of it all AND never experiencing negative things...I mean screening your kid from Toy Story or the Little Mermaid??? Kids NEED to learn these emotions or else they can't imagine other people having them. I see posts about people feeling guilty because they sometimes let their child play alone without them. Kids NEED to learn these things.

[Anonymous]

Many two parent families worked in the 1970s too - and back then there were latch key kids instead of after school programs. It's not as simple as saying more parents are working because while that may be true, a lot of parents worked then too.

In any event I agree with others - I think the biggest change is the being plugged in. Look at cyber-bullying - or just FB in general. We are all putting on a show and while it's connecting us to others on a superficial level it's not really the same kind of connection. I was struck when I went back to grad school 7 years ago by the fact that no one walked across campus and said hi - everyone was buried in their phone. No more awkwardness at parties - you have your phone. You can connect with someone miles away, not who you are actually with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, it isn't a sign of something amiss if we blame daycare and not ourselves, as parents and society? It is so much easier to do so, I know. The thing is, we have become the most narcissitic society since ancient Rome.

Isn't that the truth? We'll blame everyone else, but refuse to look at ourselves, and how we parent. What kind of example are we setting for our children? Huge homes, big SUVs - children believe that those are what's most important, not little acts of kindness, or that being moral is really what matters.

We have mice in our attic, and we figured out how they got in, but we still have to deal with getting them out. Instead of setting glue traps (so inhumane), poison, or worse yet, the snap traps, we are trapping them humanely and releasing them outside. I explained to my 4 yr. old that just because we don't like mice in our home (who does?), doesn't give us the right to kill them (we're not GOD) - God put them here for a reason and we are stewards of the land, which means we have to take care of world and the creatures that live with us. Kind of sounds corny, I know, but I really do believe that we are stewards of this world and that killing isn't acceptable (even mice).

No, we as parents, we need to live and parent with empathy. There is nothing wrong with being, even a little, soft hearted

[Anonymous]

Actually, I think it has less to do with daycare in general and more to so with over-scheduled kids and over-structured environments. Overscheduled kids that are in activities that tells them what to do - have no time to think for themselves - or figure out how to relate to other kids. They spend their lives just following the rules. I've read several articles on how this has caused a group of kids that are just unable to think for themselves.

A good daycare/preschool (or SAHM at the playground) will let the kids interact and figure out things for themselves. If I'm mean to all the kids, they won't play with me. It feels bad when the kids don't play with me, so maybe I should not be mean.

Its hard to develp empathy if you are never allowed to feel the feelings yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, look around you. Read the threads on this board. Look how people treat each other. Watch the rudeness on the roads, in the malls, etc. Those adults are raising those children who were talked about in the NPR piece.

Then turn on the news and you seen the violence and cruelty humans are capable of, as a general matter.

The conclusion in that piece is not surprising.

It is very sad.

This was my first thought, too. It's easy to say, "kids these days!" but look at how people treat each other on this board. We have a self-centered generation raising self-centered kids. It's particularly bad in DC, IMO. I seriously can't go to Target without being stunned by the behavior of other people. I'll say excuse me, and the person won't move. The other day, I was in line behind a woman who was apparently saving a spot for her husband while he shopped. So all of the sudden I'm behind this dude with a HUGE basket of groceries. I could go on and on. It's crazy. But I digress.

Excellent point. I do worry about how to teach my son to be patient, and kind to those around him when he is surrounded by such a "Me-first" attitude in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally think its the helicopter parenting. We spoil our kids endlessly today and don't teach them to chin up on things. They grow up being the center of it all AND never experiencing negative things...I mean screening your kid from Toy Story or the Little Mermaid??? Kids NEED to learn these emotions or else they can't imagine other people having them. I see posts about people feeling guilty because they sometimes let their child play alone without them. Kids NEED to learn these things.

I'm not sure I totally agree about letting Pixar or Disney take on my role of teaching empathy, and I think kids learn by back and forth play with parents rather than always being pushed off, but watching stories (or reading them) and talking about the feelings of the characters and the choices they make IS how you shape character and develop empathy as is doing pretend or role playing. Some other tips
http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html

In my own kids lives I see even on the sports field that adults don't seem to want to engage or maybe take the time to instill things like good sportsmanship. Kids don't seem to have a lot of consequences. Our whole society glorifies putting yourself first and making $, so the results are not that surprising, just sad. All these reality shows can't help either.

[Anonymous]

When I was a teen my parents used to march me down to a soup kitchen once a month to serve the homeless meals for the day. It did make a huge impession on me. In our county there is a community service requirement for graduation, but I'm not sure what sorts of service counts toward the requirement. If your teen is acting like a blockhead, get them a serious volunteer job for a while and see if that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was a teen my parents used to march me down to a soup kitchen once a month to serve the homeless meals for the day. It did make a huge impession on me. In our county there is a community service requirement for graduation, but I'm not sure what sorts of service counts toward the requirement. If your teen is acting like a blockhead, get them a serious volunteer job for a while and see if that helps.

My private school (I did not grow up in the DC metro area) had a requirement every year of high school - it was very eye opening and ITA with this point.

[Anonymous]

I only have a 15 mo DD, but I suspect that having her in daycare has made her more emphathetic as she sees other kids expressing their needs, sharing, cooperating, living with diversity, etc. Hard to know how much to credit daycare for that, and how much is just her maturing and becoming more socialized, but I was shocked that someone even suggested daycare might be a factor.

Oh, and I was a daycare kid in the 70's, and I always knew that my mom -- a social worker -- and my dad -- a religious leader -- weren't with me because they were helping people in need with whom they EMPATHIZED.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]IMO, a child's primary teachers are going to be the parents. Period. What happens in day care might have some temporary impact on a child's empathy, but to say that it is immutable for the rest of their lives is illogical. It's the overall way a parent actually parents (or fails to) that is going to make a difference. [/quote]

Have you read the research about child development that says that a child's basic personality has been formed by age 3 ? I know I will get a lot of attacks for this, but is anyone up for talking about how having a newborn to age three year old primarily in a setting where PCG is a HS grad only( average day care worker) and has to split their time on a 1:4 ratio( DC law) that this may result in an infant learning early that many needs go unment....leading to less empathy capacity building, more anxiety and depression, more ADD, etc) ?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]IMO, a child's primary teachers are going to be the parents. Period. What happens in day care might have some temporary impact on a child's empathy, but to say that it is immutable for the rest of their lives is illogical. It's the overall way a parent actually parents (or fails to) that is going to make a difference. [/quote]

But many children spend 10 hours /day M-F in day care( 8AM-6pm) event infants. Presuming that they go to bed at about 7:30-8pm and a big block of that 6pm-8pm time is spent in a car seat, that means they spend about 1 hour a day interacting with a parent. If you add the weekend , that means maybe 24hrs/wk with a parent vs 60hrs/week with a day care worker , who by the nature of day care ratios will often be tending to some other child when infant is crying, not sleeping well because another infant is crying or not being played with etc...

I wonder if these empathy stats are the same in Canada and European countries where at least 1 year paid maternity leave is the standard? Does anyone know?

[Anonymous]

"Have you read the research about child development that says that a child's basic personality has been formed by age 3 ? I know I will get a lot of attacks for this, but is anyone up for talking about how having a newborn to age three year old primarily in a setting where PCG is a HS grad only( average day care worker) and has to split their time on a 1:4 ratio( DC law) that this may result in an infant learning early that many needs go unment....leading to less empathy capacity building, more anxiety and depression, more ADD, etc) ? "

Sounds like a welfare SAHM. What is your point?

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's about resources. As things have gotten more difficult in this country in the last decade, each person has focused more on striving for themselves and their family, not the collective good. So I am going to save all my money to send MY kid to college, for example. Not give it to the charities that desperately need it. And if I allow myself to really think about all those people in need, in need of things like food, shelter, warmth..... I need to insulate myself from that empathy in order to continue hording my resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a welfare SAHM. What is your point?

Sounds like someone hit a nerve. What, do you have a weekend nanny? Wow.