Well hello everybody, it's a beautiful day to bust some cognitive distortions. My name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW, and I am a Master K-12 teacher as well as a kid therapist. And today I want to talk to you about the concept of something I think I may have just invented that I like to call EEBL, okay? Elementary Empathy Based Learning. Elementary Empathy Based Learning. Okay, so elementary, like elementary schools, I think this is very important. And now I've been working in elementary and primary schools for a while and I'm seeing that this is where we can really focus and try to help some folks because these are the kiddos that did go through the pandemic and they may have missed a few things. So perhaps we could try to work on this. So let's talk about empathy. Empathy means, for those of you who may not be clear, it means that you have emotionally gone through some kind of a trauma where when other people talk about the bad things that happen, you actually feel the feels even in your body of like, wow, I get that. Also if you feel that compulsion, you'll be like, oh, I know this story, where that happened to me. Well then that's empathy. Sometimes kids use stories and connections that it's helping their brain to grow, it's critical thinking. So they like to make connections to their life when they felt a similar emotion, which is a great game to play because it helps them to build that brain activity. So elementary empathy based learning is an idea that perhaps we could take our elementary school kids and even in 20 minutes a day. This is families, this is schools, this is communities. 20 minutes a day. We can focus on empathy. Focus on the ability to say, you know what, I've been through something and I understand where you're coming from. And I'm not here to outstage you or anything like that. I'm just here to help you. How can I be of help to you? What have you been through? So it's about being open to understanding the pain that someone may have gone through, but also willing to help see them through it. Now an inside out of course, sadness represents empathy. So she's kind of the heroine of the story because remember when she goes and sits next to Bing Bong and he's crying his little candy and everything and he's like, oh, Riley doesn't love me anymore. Well, that's when you start to see that imagination, which is what Bing Bong represents, is starting to turn into anxiety because it's the same part of the brain. Anxiety is imagination not having any fun, right? So Bing Bong is starting his transition into anxiety, which is not good. But you notice that Bing Bong seems to have a lot of orange around and I think that was a precursor to anxiety. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe I'll get to ask that someday. But anyway, sadness represents empathy because she came over and sat next to him and was just like, you know, I'm so sorry. I understand that must have been really hard. What have you been through? You know, tell me what's your story? And that is empathy and being a good friend and being a good citizen. So in schools, being a good citizen, that's part of it. And we work really hard to, you know, I've been in these schools now for a couple of years with the elementary and primary schools and they work so hard to make sure that they walk in lines and that they're part of a citizen community. And I mean, there are their aces about that. I love that. But we have to bolster that at home as well. That being a good citizen means that, you know, if in your house that means putting a dish in dishwasher, then that's a thing. Or you know, kids are capable of that. And you know, if you want to show them how to wash a load of laundry, that is fine. Elementary kids can do that. You know, they may not want them touching the chemicals, but they can put their clothes in the washing machine, you know, things like that. But empathy based learning would also entail things like etiquette where, you know, being able to talk to adults is really important. And those social skills are something that everybody needs to work on. It's not just the divergent kids and divergent folks, you know, we think very globally. We think very broadly. And you know, I say, I think to outer space and beyond because the problem is, is that when you have a really big thought a lot, you tend to develop that anxiety, but you can't help but think that way. So divergent people tend to have a lot of empathy because they have experienced a lot of things from an emotional point of view. So the spectrum of divergent, think of like divergency is sort of like space. And then, you know, there are other spectrums within that. So, or say other universes like the Milky Way could represent one. And so like autism could be another and so on and so forth. But to understand people for who they are and accept them for who they are and whatnot. So etiquette is part of that and respecting your elders is part of that. So respect kiddos. You've talked to me a lot about what respect means to you. So I'm going to try to relay this to the adults. OK. So if I get this wrong, you got to hold me accountable. All right. So friends, kiddos, I understand that people may be older than you and you don't understand why you should give them respect. Now, respect comes with safety. So safety and empathy are tied together. What makes you feel safe is the thing that is probably the most important thing. You know, there's that Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Where there's this guy Maslow and he's got this pyramid and at the bottom, it's almost like building a house. And so the basement of the house, the foundation is safety. And then you have like food, water, shelter and so on. And so as you build the house or go up the pyramid, it gets more specific. But you have to have a good foundation. So when someone is older than you, you know, you don't understand maybe why you should give them respect, but understand that with empathy, they have probably been through some things because they've been on the planet a lot more years than you. Now, you may not know about what those are or anything, but just the fact that they are significantly, you know, older than you means that they might know something you don't. So they deserve respect just simply because they've been through more. That's you having empathy for them. So that's important. OK, so having a little respect for people is important. So I say, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. Now, in the South, we say ma'am a lot. Also, too, I like to call women who are my senior or older than me, as we say. I like to call them aunties. So I see like a woman mentor who may be older than me. I call them auntie. So that can be a respect thing. So etiquette, it's also how to eat a meal, how not to. And phones, there's that whole thing with restoring childhood, where it's about getting off screens and all that and TV and all that mess. Well, during dinner, the phones got to go. You have to be able to converse with each other and talk about things. And so even if it's 10 minutes of time, just set a timer if need be on the phone. And we've got all kinds of little digital help to do that with AI and everything else. So but maybe and they even have an app, I think it's called like conversation starters where they at dinner, they can bring up like a topic for you if you even need that. So but it's good to get off the screens and to have those discussions and hopefully be able to build a slightly more beneficial way of having empathy in your family and in your classroom and for people to understand each other and their point of view a little bit more, which makes everybody happier and feel more safe. So it's kind of like when kids kind of flip out and yell and scream and whatever in front of me. And then I tell them, thank you. And they don't have any idea what to do with that. And they're like, why? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. And I'm like, no, because you feel safe enough to just let me handle it if you freak out. So thank you. And a lot of them just like they do that. Because isn't that what we want, ultimately, is just someone to make us feel safe for a few minutes? So that's all we need. I mean, everybody, little, bigs, everybody, we all just want to feel safe. That's our foundation. So we just need to take a minute to think about these things. So elementary empathy based learning is that ideology where when we have kiddos that are, you know, in elementary school and certainly in middle school, this needs to continue through middle school. But in middle school, I think we could focus on the idea that empathy can be dealt with and anxiety because then you go into the anxiety portion where the brain develops that. You know, that's where we start using things like, you know, I talked, you know, CBT talk therapy. That's what I do. But also I use DBT, which is like art therapy. And so the arts are the way that middle schoolers can utilize their anxiety. And put it, put their empathy to good use instead of turning it into more anxiety and stress. So yeah, my art school, the last few hours of the day were all art classes to which, you know, I was in visual arts, so I drew things. So I got to draw and do what I wanted to do. And it was very therapeutic. So the end of the day, I was just cool as a cucumber. So that's, you know, empathy based learning at a middle school level for me. Because the curriculum was designed to help me have that. Instead of just giving me art at the beginning of the day and then I'm half asleep for the rest of the day. You know, they designed our classes accordingly to where we would be in Metis, where we were. And understood who we are as kids. So as adults, we need to understand from the kiddos point of view, you know, what is the why? It's all about the why. Like why do we do what we do? So why is it that at 10 most of the kids get tired? Okay, so what can we do about that? So, you know, pay attention to what the kids are doing at what times per day and what can we maybe do better to help them get through their day in a more effective, efficient way. That's good for them too. It saves their time and respects their time and saves you time. So it just works better for everybody. So when it's a win-win, it's a good thing. So empathy-based learning is a great thing for everybody to go through. But in elementary school, you know, kiddos these days don't have Mr. Rogers. They don't have somebody to sit them down in a nice patient voice say, hey, you know, this is the way things go. And he also has, you know, a religious background. He had a doctorate at the Pride of Pittsburgh and wonderful cardigans. But, you know, it was sort of like going to church in a way and or going to a religious function, but as a small child. And I, you know, from a previous episode, I talked about Daisy the dog and how I stood up for the first time. I thought maybe, I don't know. And I looked at Mr. Rogers and there was something weird that happened. And I was very, very, very young at the time, but it's like burned in my brain. So, you know, Mr. Rogers was a big deal as a Gen Xer. And I learned a lot from him. And I feel like that folks who were not of that generation really missed out. And so hopefully somebody like that will come along for the Smalls. And I know we have like Miss Rachel and all kinds of really cool people now. And I saw some bunch of guys that are doing this like dance thing on YouTube and so many cool things for the littles. But elementary empathy based learning. I'm starting to see more and more with that. There's SEL. Fantastic socio, you know, emotional learning. That is fantastic because it teaches kids how to be more social and understand their emotions and look at, you know, inside out things like that and analyze it. Like take inside out and just break it down and go through both movies. Break it down. Well, why is that? That anxiety attack? Hey, is that have you ever been through that? That's a great way to bring up empathy. You know, hey, did you know most of us who saw the inside out too at the end of that, we all had a visceral or body like whole entire body reaction to that moment. Right. It freaked us out. So that's a great place to start. If you want to talk about empathy, be like, remember that scene? Boy, I remember this one time when and there you go. So conversation starters. So this is a way that you can start to build a more empathetic relationship with your family, with your kids. And you will find that the safety increases because the bonds are stronger and the trust will be there and therefore the respect. So all those things start to fall in, you know, instead of a house of cards that fall, you start to see a house that builds and it's brick by brick by brick. So elementary, empathy based learning big deal. But in middle school, I know this is middle school, Mary Poppins, but it starts early. And we don't want to forget our littles. Very, very important. We don't want to forget that this group of kids is a very, very special group of kids. And my fastest growing population are those born during the pandemic. So there you go. Take from that what you will. But and the main thing is, is that we just want to all take a minute to understand everybody and be a little bit more empathetic and to try to be friends. You know, when I was little, I used to go from house to house with my care bear that was friend bear and be like, do you have any kids that want to be friends? And I mean, bless it, bless it. You know, but we all do things that we put ourselves out there and want to be friends because we want to feel safe and have a network of people. We want our people. We want our family and we want we want to feel connected, confident, capable, connected, all those things. So the more empathetic we can be to everybody, the better off we're going to be. And I always think that dogs remind us about empathy all the time because you have to think that dogs, you know, they don't communicate with words. They can't do that. And, you know, we've domesticated dogs. You know, they've I think it's what dogs have been domesticated 3000 years longer than cats have. So it's, you know, we've been around them for so long, but yet not spoken a word to each other because there wasn't spoken word. And it just doesn't work that way. So we have to communicate through body language and, you know, emotion and just kind of the vibe you give out and all of this thing. I mean, 80% of communication is nonverbal. So we've learned to read dogs, which help us to understand how to read other people's emotions. And the better off we are doing that, we can start to understand empathy a little bit better and say, oh, OK, I think based on what I see on their body language and this and that and so on, maybe they're sad. And that's the kind of thing that people, you know, do in therapy also where we work on, hey, how do we figure out who's sad, who's angry, who's this, who's that. And a lot of folks who are divergent, it's a little hard to tell sometimes because we have really, really big thoughts. And, you know, unless you pay attention to every single tiny little detail, you can kind of miss it. Ferris Bueller. So we got to point it out a little bit and that works. So we all can work on this. So think about empathy. Think about how you can put more empathy into your world and how you can encourage empathy in your home and how you can go stream Mr. Rogers, because I think we all could use a good dose of that these days, don't you? Yeah, I agree. So thank you so much for your time. Stay clever little foxes and consider elementary empathy based learning. Take care.
