Compassion Begins with You: Bring Your Best Self to the Classroom

When we think about compassion, we often think about empathizing with someone who is in distress. Compassion goes beyond empathizing. It is the desire to notice when someone else feels distress or is suffering and want to help.

Early care and education professionals can impact children through compassionate and caring interactions that contribute to children's social and emotional development. The interactive feature of compassion, which involves not only noticing distress but also offering support, can benefit both the child and the educator.

"A growing body of research is demonstrating that by regularly engaging in practices that help us generate a sense of care and compassion for others, we can improve our own lives" (Jennings, 2015, p115).

One important aspect of offering compassion to others is being able to show compassion to ourselves. This is called self-compassion. Several core aspects of self-compassion include the ability to notice and acknowledge our own distress or suffering, treat ourselves with care and kindness, and understand that everyone experiences times of struggle. It is part of the human experience.

Dr. Patricia Jennings (2019), a leader in the field of mindful practice and education, identifies four ways that one experiences compassion.

1. Accepting compassion or remembering when we experienced compassion given by another
2. Offering ourselves compassion
3. Offering others compassion
4. Observing someone else who shows compassion

These four dimensions of compassion not only contribute to our own development of compassion but can also impact how we notice, acknowledge, respond to, and support children's experiences.

Five ways to support compassionate care with children

1. Self-compassion is an aspect of feeling compassion for others. Build resilience in yourself through self-compassion. Recognize and acknowledge your challenges and offer kindness to yourself. Allow yourself the room to feel the emotion(s) and label the situation without dwelling on negative thinking. For example, you might say to yourself, "It feels difficult right now." Recognize that we all encounter challenges in life. The more we can understand and compassionately respond to ourselves and our struggles, the more effectively we can respond to others in a compassionate manner.
2. The seeds of compassion grow when young children learn about and develop the capacity to care about, help, and share with others. Use specific language that shows you notice and care about what children do and how they interact with one another such as, "Jon, you helped Kayla when she fell while you were playing the game. You're a caring friend!"
3. The desire to provide help is a fundamental aspect of compassion. Offer opportunities for children to be in helping roles with their peers. Encourage team efforts during clean-up time, on the playground, and at mealtimes. For example, "Carly and Juan, you both worked together to carry the chalk bucket to the playground. Thank you for your help! I know we'll enjoy drawing with the chalk today."
4. The ability to understand emotions in yourself and others is foundational to feeling compassion. Support children's efforts to learn about their own emotions and those of others. When children expand their emotional vocabulary and understanding, they are better able to understand how another person may feel. For example, notice children's feelings and use emotion words to describe their feelings. Ask children how they are feeling. Point out the facial expressions of characters in books and ask children how they think the character feels. Talk about emotions throughout the day in ways children can understand. For example, a teacher may say, "I'm feeling happy all my friends are here today to share in our day!"
5. Children notice how we act and what we say. Be a model of compassionate care. When a child is in distress, use words to label how the child may be feeling and what actions can help alleviate the distress. For example, "Sunita, you look like you're feeling sad because mom just left. She'll be back this afternoon, just like always. Theo and Mara, how do you think we can help Sunita feel better?"

References

Jennings, Patricia A. (2015). Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom. W.W. Norton & Co. Reference: Jennings, Patricia A. (2019). The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom: Building Resilience with Compassionate Teaching. W.W. Norton & Co.