I witnessed the opposite of “empathy” in the play of twin 1-yr to 18 month old (they were still only crawling) sisters, not so many years ago.
They had the entire apartment, minus the bathroom and the kitchen to crawl around in, including a large play area arranged for them on the living room floor.
Their father and I sat and chatted, glancing from timt to time at the girls.
At some point, one of the girls had something she apparently liked and had gone off in a corner to play with it. The father and I could hear her babbling happily with the top of her head visible behind the big pillows she had crawled over to her private play place.
After some minutes went by, the other sister dropped what she was doing and header to where her sister was playing.
The father and I soon saw her scrambling back over the pillows with something in her hand and her sister crying as loud as you never want to hear a child cry.
The father did not intervene, we both just watched.
Within some seconds the crying sister, sobbing a little more softly, climbed over the pillows and craweled toward her sister.
When the crying sister reached the other one, she attempted to take back the item her sister had taken from here, more than once; to no avail.
Next, she just sat near her sister, looking straight at her and continued to sob, in varying levels.
After a minute of that, the sister who had taken the item away from her sister, crawled a little closer to the crying one.
Then, she held out the item to to crying one.
The sobbing one reached for it, and guess what?
Whenever the sobbiing sister reached just close enough to touch the item, the other one withdrew it and clutched it closer to herself.
She repeated this teasing gesture a few times, and seemed to take delight in seeing her sister’s reaction.
Finally, apparently tiring of it, “the thief” turned, still clutching the item closely, and crawled away, heading out of the living room and down the long hallway to the bedroom, as her sister continued to wail.
The whole thing had taken but a few minutes.
Somewhat stunned at what we witnessed, the father and I looked first at each other and simultaneously asked each other “did you see that”.
After a couple brief comments between the father and I, the father picked up the crying girl, consoling her and carrying her down the hallway to the bedroom.
I went to the kitchen to continue preparing a meal, but, yes, it - the incident - was a subject of conversation during the rest of their visit of a few days.
I think without supervision, kids, even VERY young ones, can choose to be bad. I’ve seen it.
Thank you for the ping and post. Most interesting. Lots of information in that on which to ponder and reflect.
look, it’s this simple.
we don’t have to train kids to be bad. that comes naturally. we have to spend a great deal of time, consistently, teaching kids to be good, or at least NOT bad. that takes a lifetime.
I will never forget this as long as I live. Thirteen month old ‘’B’’, a little girl, didn’t know she could walk. She had a plastic child’s lawn mower that she held onto every where she went. Now and then she’d pick it up as she walked, but as long as she was holding on to the handle, she thought she was supported.
One day as she was trucking up and down the hallway, little ‘’L’’ came to visit. He was 16 months old and even then he thought he was a hot shot. He was actually quite the bully for such a young one.
Miss B was trucking down the hall minding her own business when L decided he wanted that lawn mower. He babbled at her in a very demanding tone of voice and she babbled back in a defiant tone of voice which was definitely a NO! Well, he shoved her and she fell on her butt. He grabbed the mower and headed in the opposite direction. She got up and RAN after him, sans lawnmower, and when she caught up with him, she gave him such a shove that he fell on his butt. All the while, she scolded him at the top of her little voice and I can just imagine what she was saying because none of us could understand a word of it.
But the body language, the look on her face, and the tone of her voice said it all. L got the msg. He HUMBLY got back on his feet, she grabbed her mower and toddled back down the hall. He trailed her just apologizing as best he could babble.
From that day forward, that boy NEVER, ever disrespected Miss B again. Miss B is now 19 years old and Mr. L STILL looks at her with respect and kindness. I watched these kids grow up and that youngster never put on a bully act like that again, to anybody.
Until the day Miss B set that boy strait, he was a monster brat. Some kids just are. I’m also glad that the mothers of the children took it in stride. They recognized what was going on, and since the result was fair and good, they left it alone.
Yep, it was one of life’s ‘’Kodak Moments’’.