A Young Girl Helps Kids with Incarcerated Parents
REALITY CHECK: During the past decades, the U.S. prison population skyrocketed, and so did the number of children experiencing the consequences of having a parent incarcerated. From just 1980 to 2000, the number of kids with a father in prison or jail rose by 500 percent. Today more than five million children in the United States of America have a parent who is incarcerated. The number of women in prison has also increased dramatically which poses a marked risk on children: incarcerated women...
Focusing on the Other Side of the Report Card
REALITY CHECK: Now that the fall semester is underway, it won't be long until your child's progress report arrives, revealing not only their academic proficiency, but their conduct report as well. Studies confirms that children today are more self-centered than ever—and it's a big problem. It’s why I urge parents to recognize the importance of raising empathic kids, challenge them to teach their children about caring and kindness today, and then take The Empathy Parent Pledge which follows. An...
When Parents Behave Badly
Solutions I shared on the TODAY show to six VERY bad, ugly parent behaviors that are affecting children’s character THE REALITY CHECK: • Referees giving parents lollipops are youth hockey games to stop them from yelling at their kids. • Teachers taking out insurance policies to defend themselves against parental lawsuits (“She give my kid a B+ and ruined his Harvard chance!”) • Moms socially engineering kid “cliques to feature only the ‘best’ and leaving out other Moms.” No kidding! These are...
Educator Guide for Student Bullying Focus Groups
An essential way to hear student concerns about school safety, their ideas for reducing bullying, creating a safe and caring school, and gathering evidence-based data about bullying is by setting up Student Bullying Focus Groups. Here is the complete guide for conducting student focus groups at your school or organization. I’ve found one of the simplest ways to find out where bullying happens at a school is to arrange student focus groups, and then ask the kids.I’ve created and then used the...
8 Ways to Nurture Our Adolescents’ Amazing Neuroplastic Brains
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the American Institute for Learning and Human Development, and an award-winning author and speaker who has been an educator for over forty years. Over one million copies of his books are in print in English on issues related to learning and human development. And he is the author of 16 powerful books including Neurodiversity in the Classroom, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, In Their Own Way, Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius,...
Parenting Through the Storm: A Must for Parenting a Special Needs Child
Truth be told: I adore Ann Douglas. If you don't know Ann, you should. She's a fabulous parenting writer, and has a wonderful ability to connect with parents. She's written numerous parenting books - and all are fabulous. But her latest publication (in print tomorrow) I fell in love with the second I read her manuscript. It's called, Parenting Through the Storm, and it's wonderful advice for parenting a child with special needs. I taught special education for years. I loved my students, but...
How to Teach Kids Empathy-Building Skills
Join the #UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Moral Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World Empathy is the critical ability that puts us in other people's shoes and helps us feel with them. Research finds that this immensely human trait can be cultivated. That means we can teach empathy to kids just like reading, math, and writing because it is made up of social-emotional skills that can be developed. But in today's test-driven, digital-driven, competitive culture,...
When to Worry: Signs That A Child May Have Low Empathy
Join the #UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Moral Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World "He never cries at movies or is concerned if his friends are hurt. But he's a boy, so I'm not worried." "Her teachers say my daughter is mean and seems to enjoy it when her classmates cry. I'm sure it's just a phase she'll outgrow." "He never seems to care about anyone but himself, but it's probably just his temperament. Besides, I can't do anything about it." Would you worry if those...
Empathy Is a Verb: My TEDx Talk to Start An UnSelfie Revolution
Join the #UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Moral Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World We’ve all had “I’ll never forget” moments: mine was April 20, 1999 watching the Columbine High School massacre on TV. I’m an educational psychologist. I’d spoken to parents at Littleton. I told my husband that’s where we should raise our three sons. I knew there was a seismic shift happening in our children’s culture. And so over the next years I put my energy into studying youth...
8 Practices That Raise Caring, Empathetic Kids
Join the #UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Moral Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World Kaila D. is not yet four, but the young girl from San Diego already has the makings of an empathetic child. When I banged my toe at a party, the three-year-old was the first to my side. I watched her size things up, look carefully at my “injury,” and then empathize. Her face switched from inquisitiveness to concern, and then she looked up with the biggest eyes, and said, “I sorry ’bout...
6 Simple Ways Children Can Spread Kindness in Schools
Join the #UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Moral Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World Practicing kindness is what helps children tune into other people’s feelings and needs, trust more, step out of their own skins to understand others, and become UnSelfies (my term for kids who are “more we, less me” oriented). Each kind act nudges kids to notice others (“I see how you feel”). Care (“I’m concerned about you”), empathize (“I feel with you”) and help and comfort (“Let me...
3 Horrific Things Violent Social Media Teaches Kids
Join the UnSelfie Revolution to Raise Kids with Empathy, Conviction and Courage To Make a Better World Tensions have been high across the country these past days and weeks after a series of separate and deadly police shootings. And then came the targeted execution of police officers in Dallas. After one shooting by a police officer at a routine traffic stop at Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a man's fiancee streamed his death live via Facebook. Over 5.6 million people since have watched his death...
54 Tips About Empathy to Raise Kids Who Think WE, Not ME (PART II )
Last week I joined with NBC's Education Nation to have another hour-long Twitter chat that focused on tips from my new book, UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. Since the book launched just a few weeks ago I've spoken to crowds of parents and educators in Boston, Richmond, New York, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, St. Augustine, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Las Vegas, Chicago (phew.. and more). I'm thrilled to say that the topic of cultivating empathy in...
95 Ways to Raise Kids To Think WE, Not ME (Part I)
Last week I joined with NBC's Education Nation to have another hour-long Twitter chat. This is our fourth time and always a thrill. This time the folks at Education Nation asked me to share facts and tips from my new book, UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. It was just released two weeks ago and I'm thrilled to say it's already in it's third printing. The topic is resonating with parents and educators alike. Writing UnSelfie was a personal ten-year journey to...
42 Ways to Raise a Kind Child
Empathy is the ability to identify with and feel for another person. It’s the powerful quality that halts violent and cruel behavior and urges us to treat others kindly. Empathy emerges naturally and quite early, which means our children are born with a huge built-in advantage for success and happiness. But although children are born with the capacity for empathy, it must be nurtured and takes commitment and relentless, deliberate action every day and can’t be left to chance. Here are...
Talking to Kids About Tragedies
"Dear Dr. Borba: My eight-year old is so upset by the terrorist attack in Orlando. He saw the television news. Now he’s afraid to let me out of his sight and cried when his daddy left for work. I don’t know what to tell him or do to make him feel safe. Do you have any ideas?" - A mom from Sarasota, Florida Tragedies are difficult enough for adults to try and understand, let alone our kids. When tragedies are perpetrated intentionally by others and cause injuries and deaths, they are...
Why Kids Need More Empathy – My Answer to TIME
I admit it, I'm greatly concerned about our kids' emotional and moral health. I'm flying tonight to San Francisco to keynote the American College Health Association about the college mental health crisis. And it is a crisis: one third of all college students report feeling so overwhelmed that they cannot function. Most disturbing is that the sharpest rise in suicide rates (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics) is among young girls....
5 Ways to Nurture Empathy in A Digital-Driven World
In 1966, Newsweek released the first part of their landmark cover story, "The Teen-Agers" A Newsweek Survey of What They're Really Like," investigating everything from politics and pop culture to teens' views of their parents, their future and the world. This week Newsweek released a fifty-year follow up study called "The State of the American Teenager in Numbers: 1966 vs Now." They set out of discover what's changed and what's remained the same for the teen set. Perhaps most fascinating was...
6 Ways to Nurture Kids’ Empathy and Boost Emotional IQ
Of course we want our kids to be compassionate and sensitive to other people’s feelings. The problem is that many kids' "empathy potential" is greatly handicapped because they don’t have the ability to identify and express emotions. They have tremendous difficulty feeling for the other person simply because they may not recognize the other person’s hurt, elation, discomfort, anxiety, pride, happiness, or anger. What these kids need is an education that provides stronger emotional intelligence:...
How to Deprogram a Materialistic Kid
Okay. You admit you have a materialistic little critter on your hands. Take comfort. There are proven ways to deprogram a materialistic kid. It will take time and commitment, but the benefits are profound for your child and your family. Kids who are less materialistic are more "we" oriented, than "me." They are more concerned about others, and less worried about how they look and what they own. Their self-esteem is more authentic. But perhaps most important, research clearly shows that these...
7 Way to Help Sensitive Kids Keep Empathy Open
Most parents would tell you that sensitive kids usually arrive that way. By nature these children seem more “touchy” from birth: they’re more sensitive to sound and change, tear-up easily, and take criticism far too seriously. Though those traits can be highly desirable (after all, the world certainly needs more compassionate people), being overly sensitive can cause problems in the social jungle. And the biggest reason is that sensitive kids don’t know how to respond to put downs, teases, and...