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of the living. Children who have been nurtured with a high degree of kindness and empathy will most likely, themselves, show more of those traits than children who have not. Beyond what degree of these traits a three-year-old shows, however, a child of this age is capable of evaluating his parents' actions and deciding whether those actions are things he finds admirable.

Children this age are also capable of understanding their parents' discussions about caring for other people and animals, and such discussions help the child put to words what he has often, until now, only experienced. When children are told one thing but experience another, the words they hear mean less to them simply because what they are told and what they have experienced or witnessed don't match.

Babies who are fortunate enough to have kind, loving, understanding, giving, parents usually turn into three-year-olds who are naturally kind and giving. It is when a child's needs are too often disregarded that a child is likely to become someone who feels too disappointed by the people he so counted on that he can't concern himself with the feelings and needs of others. Psychologist, Abraham Maslow, established his "Heirarchy of Needs", which shows that people must have their most basic needs met before moving on to needs associated with higher forms of thinking, and eventually moving on to the highest form of thinking, which is associated with concern for others and the world.

Children under three aren't usually capable of the kind of empathy they'll later be capable of feeling. They are often too young to understand that, say, carrying the cat a certain way may hurt the cat. That's why one of the needs of the very youngest children is to have parents stop them from doing hurtful things, even if they don't realize that what they're doing is hurtful. They may not understand why they shouldn't do some things, but they will learn not to do them. When they're older they'll better understand the "why's". (There is a reason three-year-old children are known for asking too many "why's".)

Kindness and generosity aren't always things people can learn. Kindness comes from the heart, and generosity comes from the soul. When these things are demonstrated because someone has been told that's the right thing to do it's never as good as when they're demonstrated out of a natural sense of empathy and altruism. Kindness and giving are things that come very naturally to a whole lot of people in this world. Rarely, are those things demonstrated by people who have not experienced them.

Learn more about this author, Lisa H Warren.
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