We talk about empathy a lot in my RIE class. But I never witnessed this quality in my son. Until this week’s class.
At every class at least one mom takes the opportunity to leave her child and go to the restroom. My RIE teacher calls this our laboratory, a safe place to practice leaving our child knowing they will be supported and respected while we are gone. Not always, but many times the child left will cry.
I have watched as the child cries, another child stops playing and watches.
I have watched as the child cries, another child begins to cry.
I have watched as the child cries, another child crawls over and sits with the child until the parent comes back.
But my son never did any of these things.
My son always continues playing. There are times when he even starts giggling. Giggling, as in… he is so immersed in his play he is giggling over the crying.
Rarely he will glance over at the crying child.
But then this week… it happened.
A girl’s mom told her she was leaving. The girl began to cry. And my son instantly stopped playing.
I don’t know if it was because she was a girl. I don’t know if it was that he is now at the point in his life, with enough maturity, that he understands this type of suffering. But now, at just shy of 14 months of age, my son showed empathy. He kept walking over to the little girl, then backing away. He never took his eyes off her. There were moments when he made small noises, as if to match her cries? And then the mom came back and my son was pointing up at the mom as she walked through the door. It was as if he was saying “hey, she’s back, she’s back!”. Perhaps signaling to the little girl?
But the girl was beyond the point of sadness because she couldn’t stop crying. She was unable to control her emotions, so the mama sat with her little girl on her lap.
I thought that this was it with my son, but it wasn’t. He kept checking in on them. He kept watching. The girl was still crying and Franky continued to feel for her.
At some point, my son went up to both mom and girl, and just barely, softly, touched the little girl’s hand. He then walked away. And the little girl stopped crying. She was watching Franky and soon enough was again ready to join him and the others.
It was just so beautiful and it was so sensitive.
My teacher has talked to us about how babies often cry when they hear crying because they have a sort of innate sense of empathy. But in the beginning this is just mimicking. At some point, it becomes more. Children really begin to understand that crying stems from a place of suffering, a place of sadness, that crying is not just noise. And this understanding establishes a true empathy within the child. Since this is a complex thing, it happens at a different stage for each child. And now, with careful observation and the perfect environment to allow such a situation to unfold, I believe my son achieved this quality.
Because of my background as a teacher, or maybe just my personality, I am always trying to learn more about RIE. I am particularly fascinated by what it looks like beyond the first two years. I ask my teacher and anyone I know who has raised their children with this philosophy, how does RIE look when our kids are teenagers? What sets RIE kids apart from non-RIE kids later on in life?
Well one of the things I often hear is compassion, because RIE is about relationship-based caring. RIE kids are just more compassionate. In preschool, elementary school, high school, and throughout their entire life.
I am not trying to say non-RIE kids can’t be compassionate. Of course some kids are and some kids aren’t. But this parenting philosophy allows kids the opportunity to develop compassion. It is because we let the kid cry and let the other kids see it. It is because we trust what kids are feeling to be real and authentic. It is because we create an environment that embraces emotion instead of stamping it out.