by Lisa H Warren

Created on: July 20, 2008   Last Updated: July 22, 2008

We don't "teach" children kindness and a wish to give to those in need. Kindness and sharing are something that come from within, and when children are raised in kindness, and see caring, they become kind and sharing people. While it may true that even a sociopath can "learn" that what is seen as positive is acting kind and giving, that's not the kind of "kindness" and "giving" that most of us want in our children. True kindness and a true sense of giving come naturally to those who are truly kind and giving.

A high degree of empathy is associated with kind and giving people, and highly developed sense of empathy has been associated with a high degree of a specific type of intelligence. Nurturing this type of intelligence is what will lead to a naturally kind and giving person, and the good news is that it isn't difficult to nurture empathy in a normal, healthy, child.

When babies are treated with empathy and understanding from the time they are born they experience how good it feels to have someone meet their needs, try to comfort them when they are scared or uncomfortable, and treat them with kindness and love. They may not know the word, "appreciate", but they feel that appreciation when someone treats them with kindness or shares with them. That "someone" is usually the child's parents, although it could be a guardian. It does have to be the person with whom the child spends most of his time and to whom he has a normal attachment. In fact, it is such treatment of a baby that contributes to the most healthy attachment.

When a baby or young child feels that appreciation for the parents who so meet his needs, treasure, respect, and share with him he comes to see them as people to whom he looks up, and to whom he feels extremely close. It is this admiration and sense of feeling close that make a baby absolutely treasure and admire his parents. When a baby is treated with kindness and empathy it helps him have a sense of security.

It is in the first three years of life that a child's brain will build brain connections at a rate at which it will not do once the child is older. This is a time in a child's life when nurturing plays the largest role that it will ever play in his development. By the time a child is close to three years old he is already looking at his parents as role models. While children two and under are more "about themselves" than "about others", a three-year-old child has begun to care about other people, animals, and the less "I centered" matters

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