Empathic parenting and child development

The Person and the Challenges Volume 5 (2015) Number 2, p. 109–121 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15633/pch.1525 Barbara Simonič University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Empathic parenting and child development Abstract Our experience of the world and life is associated with our sense of ‘self’, which begins to grow in the preverbal period through the child’s primary relationships with his/her parents. Such relationships should be optimal and full of true, genuine and deep contact, marked with a parent’s empathic responsiveness. Empathic parents encourage positive development, while lack of empathy is many times associated with dysfunctional patterns of behaviour in later life. Empathy is a critical factor for the healthy development of a child, especially for the growth of a creative and genuine sense of ‘self’, which in adulthood is essential for a healthy and vibrant personality, one who is capable of coping with life and living empathic relationships. Empathy in the narrowest sense of the word is the ability to share and comprehend the feelings and thoughts of another, e.g. the ability to have insight into experiencing. In a broader sense, it is the basic dynamics of relationships that fully enable us to feel safe and accepted with others and thereby give us space for growth and development. Keywords Empathy, early development, parent-child relationships, sense of self, religious experience. 1. The importance of relationships Integration into the relational matrix marks the most basic dimension of human existence. Already at birth, we are not so much creatures of instinct, but rather relational beings. Relationships are innate to human nature, to the human experience, biologically and genetically ingrained in our very existence. The individual is in constant interaction with others right from the start, and 110 The Person and the Challenges Volume 5 (2015) Number 2, p. 109–121 these primary relationships constantly build and supplement the individual’s primary experience1. Many important researchers and psychoanalysts (e.g. Winnicott, Klein, Fairbairn, Sullivan, Bion, Kohut, Stern, Bowlby et al.) have demonstrated that children are relational beings by nature. The first thing any individual seeks, already at birth, is a sense of connection, a relationship. After all, we cannot survive without a relationship. Being in a relationship is a primary need. The affective dynamics that transpire in these primary relationships are of great significance. Our brains and bodies are naturally designed to link us to each other in our primary and fundamental relationships, all of which are learned in the family of origin. Further, we then continue to seek many of these affects throughout life in ensuing relationships, simply because they promise connection. The affective dynamics and atmosphere from primary relationships thus constitute an individual’s psychological structure2. They provide the basis upon which individuals then proceed to perceive the world, their relationships and their selves. An individual with a healthy and vibrant sense of self is capable of coping with life, and living it in all fullness, with regard to their self, others and also with God. 2. Empathy as the fundamental characteristic of functional relationships Relationships that have a positive influence on the individual’s development are full of genuineness and connection right from birth. Parental empathy is the main characteristic of such relationships, and it marks a real commitment as well as the physical and emotional availability of parents from the day their child is born onwards. This will determine the breadth and depth of the child’s social and relational world. After all, this primary relationship will determine how the newborn will develop. The first three years of the child’s life are fundamental for the development of the child’s brain. Since the brain is not yet a fully formed organ at birth, it develops and grows in response to the spontaneous relationships experienced within the environment. Experiences 1 C. Gostečnik, Sodobna psihoanaliza, Ljubljana 2002, Brat Frančišek in Frančiškanski družinski inštitut, p. 20. C. Gostečnik, Inovativna relacijska družinska terapija, Ljubljana 2011, Brat Frančišek, Teološka fakulteta in Frančiškanski družinski inštitut, p. 385–389. 2 Barbara Simonič Empathic parenting and child development 111 from the early formative years of the child’s life are the most consequential. The child’s primary relationship, especially with the mother, thus provides the basis for how the circuitry for emotional processing will form in the child’s brain; this circuitry will also determine the individual’s greater or lesser capacity to enter into emotional relationships later in life3. Empathy could be defined as our ability to feel into the feeling and thinking of another person. By this we put ourselves in the position of others so that we gain internal knowledge and insight of the other’s internal life. We understand what someone else is experiencing and how they feel about it. The term is often used as a synonym for careful, sensitive and sympathetic listening, that’s why it is also often equated with notions such as ‘compassion’, ‘understanding’, ‘sympathy’, and ‘charity’. These are related but different phenomena. They all denote the emotional and rational perceiving of another person’s situation, but they differ in the depth of engagement of the individual who is experiencing the situation of this person4. Reaching beyond all cultures, religions and gender, the capacity for empathy is universal. It is something spontaneous and natural, innate to every human being, and as such it is fundamental for dialogical relationships at a deeper level; moreover it facilitates understanding others, which provides the foundations for every decent relationship. Other similar capacities (e.g. compassion, sympathy) also contribute to this; however empathy is considered the “royal road” to understanding other individuals5. Empathy enables us to place ourselves within the psychological framework of experiencing another individual. What the other individual feels and thinks and how they function then becomes somewhat understandable and anticipated. This stance is often exemplified with the image of “placing yourself in someone else’s shoes”. This is far from just a cold calculating regard of what someone else is thinking or feeling. True empathy is realized in vulnerable interactions with another; one in which this other individual can be understood, and one’s behaviour can be anticipated and connected to, through recognizing the atmosphere (especially K. Kompan Erzar, A. Poljanec, Rahločutnost do otrok, Ljubljana 2009, Brat Frančišek in Frančiškanski družinski inštitut, p. 16. 3 4 p. 353. B. Simonič, Empatija, Ljubljana 2010, Brat Frančišek in Frančiškanski družinski inštitut, 5 M. O’Hara, Relational empathy: Beyond modernist egocentrism to postmodern holistic contextualism, in: (...truncated)