Greater Good

Yesterday, two things happened:

(1) I had two separate conversations with new parents about how having a baby can be like a wrecking-ball to a marriage, especially in the first year.

(2) Three different people asked me what tips I’d give parents who want to raise empathetic children.

These conversations are related.

First of all, I want new parents everywhere to know that it is totally normal for that adorable bundle of joy to cause a tailspin in your marital satisfaction. An abundance of research shows that this happens to the VAST MAJORITY of couples: Statistics vary, but most studies indicate that 70 to 90 percent of couples report being less satisfied with their marriages after a baby is born.

Here’s the thing. Just because it is totally common for us to start feeling, say, hostile, toward our partner when junior comes home from the hospital, it doesn’t mean that those feelings are harmless—to the marriage OR to junior.

In fact, hostility between parents can seriously harm a newborn baby’s nervous system. When parents fight, baby doesn’t feel safe, and this is one of the most important things for proper emotional, intellectual, and even physical development. Far from being oblivious, pooping blobs, babies are highly attuned to the world around them. They may not understand what their parents are fighting about, but their nervous systems detect that something is wrong.

One important antidote to the decline in marital satisfaction is to get more sleep, but that is a different blog post.

Another important way to keep your marriage from self-destructing is to practice empathy with your partner. I love John Medina’s recommendation for how to develop an “Empathy Reflex,” which he describes in his book, Brain Rules for Baby (which, if you don’t have it already, you should run out and buy).

Here are Medina’s two steps for when your partner is looking at you with rage, disgust, or even just mild irritation.

1. Describe the emotions you think you are seeing in your partner. Say you go to work and your partner has been home, alone, all day, with baby. You come home, and he or she immediately unleashes on you for being late. Instead of pointing out that it is only 5:36 and you promised to be home by 5:30, say something like, “You look exhausted. And furious. You are clearly about to blow a gasket.”

2. Make a guess as to where those emotions are coming from. Continue: “You couldn’t have clocked more than three hours of sleep last night; you must be feeling unbelievably crappy because of that alone. And it doesn’t help that I got plenty of sleep, woke up, showered without interruption, and then jaunted off to the office, where I have engaging work, adults to talk to, and lunch in restaurants that don’t involve pureed peas which eventually land on my collar. I’m so sorry that I’m late, honey. I appreciate all you are doing right now.”

This is the companion technique to the one I describe in “How to Pick a Fight” where you express appreciation and an “I-statement” when you have a bone to pick with your beloved.

Developing Medina’s “empathy reflex” (along with the techniques I describe in this post) will reduce the hostility in your marriage. It will also have another important benefit: Practicing empathy with your partner will help you raise a compassionate child.

Children do what we do, not what we tell them to do. For example, if you have a child who tends to be defensive when she’s arguing with her siblings (as I do), it’s probably not going to be all that effective simply to say to her “don’t be defensive,” when she’s doing it.

It will be more effective to model other ways of reacting to conflict (namely, by accepting at least some responsibility when your co-parent or spouse accuses you of something).

So when you’re on the verge of a heated argument with your partner (or your children, if they are older), take a step back and make a real effort to understand where your partner’s coming from—what he or she is feeling, and why he or she might be feeling that way. Then, as carefully and sensitively as you can, try to convey this to your partner (I’m sure he or she will correct you if you are wrong).

You’re boosting the odds that your children will eventually develop this same reflex with their siblings and friends, with you, and, yes, maybe even with their future spouses. This “empathy reflex” is at the heart of compassion, because it primes us to both see other people’s suffering, and put ourselves in a position to help them. 

© 2011 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, love, belonging, creativity, and faith.          —Brene Brown
                                                         
Last week, a friend told me that she thinks her kids will probably have a hard time getting into an independent high school in their area because they “aren’t really good at any one sport.” It then occurred to me that my kids really don’t do any formal sports.

I started to feel panicky. I found myself thinking seriously about somehow getting my kids on a local team, even though they’ve already missed the try-outs for soccer and softball sign-ups … and have very little interest in organized sports.

My kids are interested in less organized childhood-y things. Playing with neighborhood kids. Making daisy-chains and building structures for their pet rats. Swimming, though not on a team. Both of them would really like to be able to ride horses (technically this could be an organized activity, but for my kids, it is a fantasy activity).  Drawing with glitter gel pens, and dressing the dog up with ribbons. Nothing that will help them get into college (or, sheesh, high school!).

Except that all these things will be an advantage in life, now and later, because they are likely to lead to happiness. As vulnerability researcher Brene Brown makes clear in this compelling TEDxKC talk, it is in life’s ordinary moments where we often find the most joy. My kids are probably not going to play the piano in Carnegie Hall anytime soon (that would take actual piano lessons, which their father and I have still failed to set up), but they are not living with the “low grade disconnection” that Brown describes, nor are either of them at risk to be as perfectionistic as I was as a kid—another trap that Brown cautions against falling into.

But sometimes, just like Brene Brown describes, I am afraid.  Especially yesterday, with all those frightening amber alerts reminding me of our children’s vulnerability every few miles.  I am afraid that my children aren’t safe enough, that I’m not a good enough mother, that I am not “exposing” them to enough extra-curricular activities or giving them enough opportunities in life. I am afraid that my children will not be extraordinary enough.

But extraordinary enough for what, exactly? Does living a fulfilling and joyful life even require one to be extraordinary? What more do I want for my children—and myself—than fulfillment and joy? Financial independence and security come to mind, for sure; also to find mastery and flow in activities (and work) they love. But do those things come from being extraordinary? Or from knowing who you are and what you want in life?

I love this video because Brown validates both my fears and my child-rearing strategies with her research on joy and vulnerability. This week, my Walking the Talk challenge is to relish the ordinary as a path to meaning and happiness, ala Brene Brown. To not be afraid that my children will be ordinary children, but to actually hope for that.

Because ordinary does not equal meaningless.  Because an ordinary childhood, free from pressure to perform and achieve, may just be the shortest road to all the things I want for my children.

Do you hope your children are extraordinary?  If so, why?  What more than meaning, fulfillment, and joy do you want for your children?  Why?

© 2011 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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“Let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”—President Obama’s Eulogy in Tucson

Chances are, your kids spent at least some time over the last week talking about the Civil Rights movement in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I’ve been quizzing the various kids in my life about what they know and what they’ve learned about Dr. King;  what they say is usually a little surprising to me.

A few kids in the back of my minivan seem fixated on the violence surrounding Dr. King’s death. Others tell stories of segregated playgrounds, water fountains, and buses. None have discussed racism as being a problem today.

Me: Do you think that people can be prejudiced?

Molly (age 8): Definitely in Disney movies.

Friend 1, wide eyed (African American girl, age 7): WHAT? Which Disney movies?

Molly: Like The Princess and the Frog. That movie is racist.

Me: Molly, what does it mean to be racist?

Molly:  Black and white people separated. All the poor people are black in that movie, and most the white people are rich. That shows racism.

Friend 2 (white girl, age 7): That’s not true. I love that movie and I’m not racist. It takes place in the olden days.

Fiona (age 9): It wasn’t really that long ago, my teacher says.

Friend 3 (white boy, age 9):  Did you know that people used to swear at Martin Luther King? We saw a movie in school and we heard a lady swearing at him when he was a kid.

Silence.

Friend 3: He got shot. Like those people in Tucson.

More silence. I’m trying to think of what to say.

Fiona: I think Ainsley [her friend who is black] would make a great president.

Molly: Yes, she made a good speech at All Together Now [a school assembly].

I find myself holding my breath during most of these conversations. But as uncomfortable as it can make me, here is my Walking the Talk challenge this week: Keep talking to the kids about race.

Research shows that although more than half of parents don’t deliberately talk to their kids about race at all, the parents who do talk about race in their family tend to have kids who are better able to identify racism when they see it, and who are more likely to hold positive views about ethnic minorities.

I know that my kids notice the differences in skin colors and lifestyles in the diverse community in which we live; this is normal. Research suggests our attunement to racial difference is biologically based.

But there is, of course, a giant difference between noticing a difference and feeling superior to that difference. Between categorizing someone as having a different ethnic background and ascribing negative stereotypes—or any stereotypes at all—to that background.

To raise children who aren’t prejudiced, the vital first step is simply to talk to children about race. In her Greater Good essay on the topic, which also appears in the Greater Good book Are We Born Racist?, psychologist Allison Briscoe-Smith shares compelling evidence that these conversations, if awkward, are powerful:

A study done by Frances Aboud and Anna Beth Doyle took nine- to eleven-year-old children who held prejudiced attitudes toward ethnic minorities and placed them with other nine-to eleven-year-olds who held less biased beliefs. They asked the kids to talk for two minutes about some of the race-based beliefs they had endorsed earlier in the study. The results were remarkable: after these conversations, the high-prejudice kids demonstrated lower prejudice and more tolerant attitudes. Given this impact of a two-minute conversation with a peer, imagine what a childhood of conversations with parents could achieve.

Knowing how to have these important conversations and knowing what to say isn’t easy. I’m not surprised that one of my conversations with kids about race turned up a comment about the Tucson shootings; racial hatred and political violence are close cousins.

For that reason, here’s a place to start: President Obama’s eulogy for the victims of the Tucson shootings. I find his speech to be a source of inspiration and a springboard for conversations with the kids about race, particularly passages like this:

We may ask ourselves if we’ve shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. … We recognize our own mortality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame - but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others….

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

For more ideas about how to raise unprejudiced children, read the rest of Briscoe-Smith’s essay, pick up the Greater Good book Are We Born Racist?, and check out Rudy Mendoza-Denton’s tips for reducing predjudice.

Do you talk to your kids about race? If so, how old are your kids, and what sorts of things do you talk about?

© 2011 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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