by Jennifer Wells

Created on: March 17, 2009

Living with a compassionate spirit is both admirable and essential. Admirable because it seems so many people today embrace a hardened 'get them first' or 'looking out for number one' attitude of self defense; essential because progress in humanity is generally made by the hard-working compassionate. What better place to nurture compassion than in the family?

Infants enter the world innocent: aware only of their immediate needs and equipped with the few skills necessary to request survival from those nearby. In his first years of development a child views the people around him as merely an extension of himself. It is a sign of good parenting that he takes his mother or other lived-with individuals for granted.

However, as he enters his third and fourth year it is important to teach him small but monumental lessons such as cause and effect. He needs to learn that hitting other children or stealing toys is not okay because his universe of one actually contains many, many individuals. It is around this time that compassion can easily begin to be taught, and must.

Start simple, find ways to involve your child in cultural activities that bring him into contact with a variety of people, or bring them to him through educational programs. Even the smallest towns often have house-sized museums dedicated to this culture or that. Museums about the Underground Railroad or a formerly local Native American population are a good start, and are both informative and interesting.

Your child does not have to be old enough to ask about skin color for you to be complimentary about people of all ethnicities. The religious parent might say "God created each of us differently, and we are all beautiful and valuable". Even a statement such as "what a lovely person" in reference to those on your television can cause a subtle association of beauty with all shades of skin, hair, eyes... things that too often adults use as an excuse to separate from one another.

Practicing compassion is not limited to introducing your child to and exhibiting comfort with people of all cultures. A compassionate nature embraces humans from all situations of life as well. A wonderful web site for encouraging your child to show an active, living compassion is www.smilesnhugs.com.

This site was created for caring individuals to send letters, cards, notes and stickers etc to children living with long-term illnesses such as cancer. They use third party addresses to protect the children and families involved, and ask

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