Neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying in schools and other kinds of violence can be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age.
Read How not to raise a bully: The early roots of empathy on Time.com.
Link submitted by a reader via the Lovefraud Facebook fan page.
Very interesting article. I may get hammered for this opinion, and I’m not trying to ‘guilt” anyone who puts their infant into a day care at age 6 weeks and goes back to work, but my observations of the “care” in many day cares for infants is very much like the “orphanage” situation with those children in Romania. They may be changed and fed but the caregivers are always rotating and the time spent with the infant is minimal, and I think that interaction between a LOVING PRIMARY CAREGIVER EVEN IF THAT CAREGIVER IS A HIRED NANNY or in a small day care where one person gives care to several children in a “home” type atmosphere is vastly superior to standard “day care” with 80 or 100 kids with a continual stream of different people providing care.
I was fortunate that the first three years of my life my egg donor lived with her mother and father and I stayed with my grandmother in my grandparents’ home. I have almost no memories of my egg donor from that period of time because I spent 99% of my awake time with my grandparents who doted on me, and very little time with my egg donor. When she remarried, she was not employed outside the home for a year and I have memories of our interactions for that year. When she went back to work and I was placed into a “good” but large day care, I have again, no memories of being with her but plenty of memories of being bullied in that day care. I was extremely unhappy there. I was fortunate to have a good first grade teacher, but in the middle of second grade, we moved and I was placed into a class room where I was physically bullied by another student until my jaw was eventually broken. and the bullying discovered.
One of the local public middle schools in which my son and I have given programs on history for the past 15 years has a NO BULLY policy that is strictly enforced, and the kids are in my observation as good a group as you could possibly expect in any school.
Other schools in which friends of mine teach, the schools are BATTLE GROUNDS with armed police there and cameras in every hall way and still the campuses are not safe from violent crime from students. This week a first year first grade teacher was dismissed because she physically bullied the kids in her classroom, not just discipline, but grabbing the kids by the clothing and lifting them off their feet while yelling in their faces, thumping their ears, or slamming them up against a wall.
As long as violence is tolerated or excused in schools whether it is emotional or physical violence, it will continue and get worse. Both teachers and students in my opinion should be held accountable for bullying. No child should be afraid to go to school.
Thanks to the LoveFraud reader who sent this link in. Thanks to Donna for posting it.
There was a case recently in Texas near where I live of a 9 year old killing himself in school. Another one of an attractive young lady being bullied to death. It is a whole new ball game these days with e-mail, facebook, twitter, texting and whatever else goes on. Kids have always been and will be cruel to each other. Our school district in general does a good job of policing the bullying, but it still happens in P.E., in the halls, restrooms, playgrounds; wherever they feel they can get away with it. Kind of like psycopaths hitting you with low blows when no one is around but being nice in front of everyone else. Well they probably had practice in school from age 5. I try to ask kids what makes you so special that you can cut someone else down? You may be up now, but the day could come that you need help or compassion- things and situations change like in a New York minute. And in some book it says to not be fooled- whatever you sow that is what you will reap. It is hard to hold on to that realization when it seems that the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly sometimes, and when the evildoers seem to have it all while stuffing poop in your face. But tables will turn- just don’t miss out on your life hating in the meantime. People who pick on innocents or people less fortunate really make me mad- don’t get me started.
I’ve seen my one son go from extremely empathetic and compassionate to nasty and mean (during harsh spath years)…..and coming back around.
He was bullied relentlessly as a youngster….and couldn’t bring himself to hit back. even if he got the shiat beat out of him…..
He said he grabbed a kids wrist once and was concerned he’d hurt him…..even thoguh he got punched in the face with a black eye.
Interesting….to watch the changes occur….
I am sure you can lose empathy permanently….depending on situations.
But I also, saw if it’s there…it can come back……
I found that for my son a good martial arts teacher can be a great resource. We studied Aikido which is a self defense gnere and chinese boxing. Giving him the skill and wisdom and sense of power that if he needed to, he could react helped a lot.
After that, he had to learn to be strong on the inside and understand the lesson of you have to care about yourself -first.
He is an amazing young man and I am so proud of him! je was bullied badly for a long time and he was very,very sick. It wasn’t fair or right and the harshness of the classmates and schools revealed to both of us how determinededly stupid people and especially people in jobs where they have virtually no risk can be.
Really enjoyed studying this article closely. It’s great. It’s good news. I rate empathy very highly after meeting a psychopath, having empathy is becoming a rare thing and so, people with empathy should be in top postions of power. Only people of high empathethic skills should govern.
CREAMPUFF–my computer internet connection is old technology and if there are storms is very poor, and also when a thread is long it gets timed out, so on stormy days wehn I have poor connections I can’t get on a thread that is long or post there easily.
I have read and re-read scriptures that my egg donor had Previously “interpreted” (wrongly) to mean one thing, and I now see that they mean just the opposite. Many times people use scripture out of context to manipulate people, like saying a “wife should be subject to her husband” yet, they do not add that a husband is commanded to “love your wife as your self”—so no true husband would abuse his wife over and over, but that very abusive husband is the one who will twist scripture so that the wife is at fault if she objects to the abuse.
Just so “forgiveness” does not mean RESTORE TRUST if it isn’t earned. Yet my egg donor had me convinced if I didn’t “trust” people or “pretend it (abuse) didn’t happen” that I was bound for hell-fire-and-brim-stone! It didn’t “feel right” to me, but her vision of this terrible angry God up there who was out to get me if I wasn’t perfect (her interpretation of course) was all I saw. Now, after re-reading the Bible and the stories there that actually tell us how to deal with psycopaths—Paul and Jesus both told us to “forgive” (get the bitterness out of our hearts) against people who hurt us but if they did not repent and reform, to “not even eat with them.” That is a direct command I think for NC to those people who will not listen to reason, who continue to behave toward us in a “sinful” and abusive manner.
Read the story of Joseph, whose brothers sent him to slavery. He forgave them, but he did NOT trust them until he had TESTED them well to see what kind of men they had become during the 20-odd years since they had broken his father’s heart by telling him that Joseph was torn of wild beasts. Joseph saw that they now would have sacrificed their own lives to save Benjamin and to save his father from more pain.
ONLY THEN did Joseph tell them who he was.
There are many stories in the Bible if you will read them with NEW eyes, like you have never read them before that will show you how to behave around and with psychopaths and others.
The God of the Bible is to me a loving father, not the hateful old punisher that my egg donor get to “approve” her abuse by using scriipture out of context and black mail of hell fire and brimstone! I like my God better than her god.
I firmly believe there are lessons in the things we have endured, and now that we are no longer flunking the class, I think we are able to “graduate” with a much higher grade point! and to have LEARNED THE LESSON. (((hugs))) and God bless.
Kids want so much to be approved of by their peers, to be accepted, and when they are not accepted, it hurts so badly. When they are bullied or abused physically and/or emotionally it can be lethal to their souls if not their bodies.
By the teenaged years many people without empathy are in “full flower” doing their taunting and bullying at a very vulnerable group of peers, teenagers. Who I think at that age in their lives are extra vulnerable. If they are “fat” or “pimply” or in any way not the “ideal” physical specimine which is portrayed on the covers of fashion rags or on television or movies, they are degraded further by their school mates.
Kids that age are so wanting to be desirable to the opposite sex and to be “popular” and “successful” at sports or other high profile school events.
That fairly recent thing of the “rich kids” breaking into the homes of “stars” and stealing just for a high, and the one girl, apparently the leader of the gang getting her OWN REALITY SHOW! How shallow to promote this girl with psychopathic traits as a ROLE MODEL for other teenagers. Of course, they don’t want the consequences of being CRIMINALS though. I do hope that they will be put in prison for their behavior, rather than glamorized for their criminal behavior.
Not all bullying can be stopped in school or out of it, but it should be stopped as much as possible and taken seriously by the schools and law.
Empathy is soooo important to teach our children, they have an ability that the disordered just don’t seem to possess. I think the spaths can ‘pretend’ to have empathy, but it just doesn’t feel right.
There was the time that my husband saw an obese man walk around a corner, talking on his cell phone. Husband started laughing about it. I asked our son, “did dad just laugh at that man?” Our son said that dad would never do that. He has our son fooled. Another time I patted my husbands belly and told him I would love him even if he gained 100lbs. I think love supercedes any perceived flaws we have. Husband proceded to tell me he would divorce me if I gained 100 lbs. Apparently, if I’m not the perfect wife, I’m no good.
How someone being overweight is funny, totally escapes me. Maybe I’m too sensative, husband always says so. I thank God that my son has empathy. With the s*** hitting the fan soon, I’ll have to explain that all the love and good intentions can’t force a person to be good. He feels that no one can be so evil, everyone can change. I thought this too, once upon a time.
Hope:
Who gives a shiat what your S says……..too sensative, too fat, too caring, too rich, too poor, too ugly, too smelly, too blah, blah, blah…..
We areall too sensative, when a spath is exposed……then we become CRAZY!
HA!
Don’t let your self esteem be eroded further ….DO NOT.
You are a good wife…..it’s HIM…NOT YOU!!!!
Love does supercede our flaws…..YOUR LOVE SUPERCEDED HIS SOCIOPATHY HUH?????
Until we recognize the danger in our situations….danger can not be superceded!
BE SAFE…..and plot and plan…..and find your strength…..
and do your recon work…..
Have you changed your passwords on your computer and set up a windows passoword, so you have to log on when you use YOUR computer?
Good idea to do……
YOU DO NOT, want him finding out your plot……
ErinBrock…When my old laptop died, I bought a new one with fingerprint recognition. After finding crap like ‘african girls in bikinis, and lesbian mayham’ on my old laptop, I thought he is setting the stage to blame me for his sicko shi*.
Thanks for caring, I get a little teary knowing that you do care. Tomorrow is the day that my lawyer and I figure out the plan of action. I am first going to talk to my daughter’s therapist and get her opinion on daughter’s safety. There are three options: Order of protection, mediation, file for divorce. I want him out of the house but he won’t leave. When I asked to separate he said that meant I would leave. NO WAY I will let the kids be alone with him. The master of deception.
This may sound goofy, I almost want him to threaten me so I can get his sorry butt outta here. I know that this is when the really crazy stuff starts, but what could be worse than 17 years o’crap.
Still working on the esteem, it takes time because it wasn’t there to begin with.