EMPOWERING STUDENT WELLNESS

CULTIVATING EMPATHY AND RESILIENCY IN YOUR CHILDREN

By Matt Edwards (Primary Chaplain) 

Raise your hand if you would like for your children to be able to grow in empathy and resiliency!

It is often thought that these characteristics are quite difficult to develop within children, particularly when they seem to be lacking. And I suppose, it does make sense for these things to take time to grow, the difficulty being that our tendencies towards instant gratification mean that we want it to happen, NOW! But just as our kids continue to learn Mathematics and English over their whole schooling life, so it takes time to have these present and active in the lives of our children. 

So I don’t have a quick fix for you. Nor am I promising any particular outcome.

But I hope to offer you a place where these things have the space to become realised, and to grow.

For many cultures around the world today, eating is a communal, relational time, as much as a time of taste-bud tickling and appeasement of hunger. Meal times are where stories can be shared together enabling investment into each other’s lives as experiences are known and felt. But how does this develop empathy and resiliency? Kids are like sponges, they absorb what they see and hear. When a painful story is shared at the dinner table, and the sharer is empathised with, our kids see that. Likewise, when a difficult time has been shared, and a desired or positive outcome was achieved by perseverance, patience, struggle and pain, children see the benefit of persisting despite difficulty. 

They learn resiliency, by hearing how other people manage their trials. Of course, age appropriateness needs to be considered during these times, particularly with multiple age groups. But it is at the meal table, where our children get to experience the practice of being resilient and empathetic, by those around them. 

These are not the only benefits of having meal times together. It is also a place where they can learn to share, take turns, listen and to ask good questions. 

And so I would encourage you to have meal times together, where everybody is present, with minimal distractions (e.g phones and television). Even once a week is a great start. It may even be difficult to implement this if it is not normative for your kids, just like it is challenging to establish any new beneficial habit. And yet, despite if it is hard to begin, the opportunities abound!

My prayer is that this would be a blessing to the development of your kids, and to you too.

For further resources on this topic please see the below links 

The Benefit of family mealtimes 

Six ways to raise a resilient child 

WELLBEING RESOURCES

We know that it can sometimes be hard to find the necessary resources in relation to mental health, bullying and family violence, especially when things are tough. For this reason, the School has a small webpage with links related to health and wellbeing resources. This can be found on the School's website under Other Resources or can be found here.