The Role of Empathy in Today’s Framework for Success
What does your child want to be?
When I ask my oldest, who is six years old, what he wants to be, his list goes on for minutes. He wants to be a husband and a funny dad, just like his father. He wants to be a doctor and a video game designer. He wants to be a volunteer at the forest service. He even wants to be a grocery bagger at the local grocery store so he can, “tell jokes to the elders when they buy groceries early in the morning.”
The list goes on. At first glance, it looks like these choices have little in common. It did to me, anyway. But there is something each of his choices has in common both in inspiration and practice.
Empathy.
Empathy is a basic human skill that helps us build and maintain healthy relationships with ourselves and others. A life without empathy is cold and empty.
You know that.
I know that.
And now, the business world knows that.
All aspects of our lives—work, marriage, friendships, etc.—have become egalitarian. It’s no longer possible to get through life without being able to participate in mutually beneficial conversations. Even leadership has evolved from a role of dictatorship into one of service through active listening.
Nurturing empathy during teenage development is pivotal to ensuring life-long success.
Empathy is a leadership skill. Studies on successful leadership have long rested on evangelizing the traits of the stereotypical extrovert: boisterousness, authoritarianism, quick decision making and the ability to present well to a crowd. They talk long and often, and are able to get the job done.
Of course, this thinking worked back when it took weeks, months, even years to get a true analytical view of how well a team functioned toward a goal.
Though long considered a soft, and in the past, undesirable skill, recent studies have proven that empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, is critical to driving performance of individuals in a working group. It’s especially critical now that no one is safe just sitting on the sidelines, going through the motions.
What’s next for kids? Sadly, empathy is in decline, an issue with far reaching social and ethical ramifications. But we can bring it back.
Modeling is the most effective way to teach empathy. As mentors, we have the power to nurture our young ones’ understanding of others’ feelings by validating theirs. Teens also need help labeling their feelings, and being encouraged to stay in their feelings even when they are uncomfortable.
When teaching empathy, it’s important to stress that one doesn’t need to understand the cause to understand the emotion. Furthermore, feelings do not need to be fixed; they change on their own when an underlying need is met. Therefore, the most effective way to empathize is simply by sharing.
Empathy also grows from examination of fiction. Literature and theater give youth an opportunity to examine and experiment with emotion. Further, literature and theater encourage teenagers to examine emotions, thus they learn how to label feelings to better understand themselves and others.
Empathy is vulnerability. A primary reason for empathy decline is the negative stigma associated with feelings as weakness. Overcoming the social stigma of displaying emotion relieves those who brave the emotional space of the burden of shame levied by onlookers, and empowers everyone not only to display, but to expect empathy with their feelings.
Empathy is an important part of the Waldorf Curriculum.
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Academic Confidence for College Success
It’s Not What You Know, It’s How Confidently You Know It
What do teens really need in high school to prepare for success in college and beyond?
It’s the question weighing most heavily on your mind. As your child prepares for the final stage of directed development before adulthood, you’re wondering how you can reinforce all the work you’ve done so far and prepare your teen for lifelong success.
So, what’s the answer?
Confidence. Not just general confidence, but academic confidence.
Confidence is one’s general belief in themselves. It’s an important attribute, one your child needs to succeed. But confidence without direction can become detrimental. An overabundance of undirected confidence can drive an individual to ignoring their flaws and overlook opportunities for growth. This leads to breakdowns in communication, trust, and relationships.
Academic confidence is quite a bit different. It denotes an individual’s belief in their ability to learn; their aptitude for academic inquiry and pursuit. Individuals who are nurtured in their academic confidence enter universities sure of their ability and ready to excel. Students with high academic confidence have been proven to be high achievers.
Click here to discover how to choose the right high school for your teen.
We know that academic confidence helps young adults gain momentum quickly and set a foundation for lifelong success. But how do we help them acquire it to begin with?
Challenge them to expand their academic comfort zones. Did your child ever say to you, maybe in first or second grade, “I’m really good at this. I must be ready for college!”
That’s intellectual confidence, the belief in one’s natural intellectual talent. The problem with intellectual confidence is the unspoken attribution of aptitude to a natural gift. And when that natural gift doesn’t measure up to challenges as the child grows, the child will internalize the failure as evidence of deep-seated fault, depreciate themselves, and become depressed.
Challenging the child to test the mettle of their academic aptitude early helps them discover that their true skill is grit, and that’s an attribute they can choose to exhibit. Children learn that they can achieve their academic goals with hard work and rise to any challenge.
Expose them to competing ideas. Do you insulate your children from competing ideas? Keeping your kids in the dark not only hurts their trust in you later, it damages their sense of self and placement in the world.
The more your child comes into contact with competing ideas and different cultures, lifestyles, and beliefs, the more secure they become in who they are and what they believe. The result? Resilience.
Intellectual resilience sounds rigid, but it isn’t. As a matter of fact, it’s a natural defense against mentality rigidness that causes the cognitive dissonance in teens and young adults which leads to depression and eroded relationships.
Rather than cutting your children and teens off from the world in their developmental years, try exposing them to as many new ideas and concepts as possible. Give them to opportunity to test their beliefs against others to form the ability to take in and test new information for the rest of their life.
Let them fail. For many parents, letting our children fail is too difficult to even imagine. We want to spare them the pain. We fear failure will hurt their confidence. We believe the road to success is paved with achievement.
In reality, though, a tower of success is like a tower of marshmallows: as soon as it rains they get sticky and dissolve.
When our children are not challenged to overcome failure until college or even later, we fail to help them develop resilience. We fail to let them develop the skillset and the mindset every individual needs to overcome setbacks and learn from their mistakes.
A new world is emerging and changing all the time. Those who will succeed in this fluid new world will be those who flow with it; those who are driven to accept and adapt to change quickly and easily. That means learning all the time.
Academic confidence is a key component of your child’s success in college and career.
High school is an important time in your teen’s development and preparation for a successful future.
Click here to discover how to choose the right high school for your teen.
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Courage, Curiosity, and Life-Long Success
As parents, we’re naturally driven to find the competitive edge for our children. We’re constantly reminded of the fact that the workforce is fluid, getting ever more competitive, and there’s no sympathy for those who can’t keep up. So we fawn over test scores, agonize over the best schools and programs. We drive our children to perform.
We just want what’s best for them, but the results are far from positive. Instead of success, we’re pushing our children to increased levels of depression, anxiety, and the breakdown of their relationships.
We want the best for our kids, but what if we aren’t looking for the right things?
Click here to discover how to choose the right high school for your teen.
Of course it’s important to expose our children to as much information and experience as possible. Education is a notable defense against manipulation and mistreatment. It’s the foundation upon which economic stability can be built. But is it enough to secure our children’s success?
And really, what is success?
What is success? Success is more than money. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to pin down. It’s a little different for everyone. Therefore, really, success is the freedom of mind to create success for yourself as you define it.
That’s a little hard to imagine.
Traditionally, success has been defined by society. Get a job. Buy a house. Start a family. But today, as the world around us becomes increasingly fluid and both options and responsibilities grow and change at break-neck speed, the ability to define and manifest one’s own definition of success is the ultimate measure of success.
The ability to define success in an insecure world is a function of two attributes: courage and curiosity. Success depends on both.
Curiosity. Innovation is the highest currency of today’s economy. But there can be no innovation without curiosity.
Curiosity is the insatiable drive to find answers. There is a difference between solutions and answers. A solution may address the observable result of a problem, but the solution is the end of the road until another problem arises. Conversely, one who seeks answers seeks to understand a problem to the fullest.
Curiosity drives Waldorf graduates to observe, investigate, and understand on a deep level, driving innovation and long-term progress.
In industry, curiosity is the catalyst of systemic growth. Which is to say, curious individuals who continually seek answers and understanding instead of settling on solutions help move entire industries to keep up with changes in the world around them. It’s what makes start-ups rise to the top of the heap in years or even months, and it’s what keeps established organizations from drowning in the torrential sea of change.
Curiosity is important, but what is curiosity without the courage to seek answers and challenge current systems?
Courage. All the skill in the world is useless to the wielder without courage. Without the courage to ask the hard questions, find the answers, present those answers, break out of the mold and challenge the status quo, ability cannot manifest into results.
Courage in leadership is vital to any team or organization. And courageous leadership looks different today. Where being a courageous leader once meant the ability to establish and maintain oneself at the top of a dog-eat-dog pack, today it means empowering everyone to lead with their best skills forward.
An impactful leader isn’t the one who claws their way to the top, it’s the one everyone turns to for advice. It’s the person everyone trusts and relies on. It’s the one who takes the best ideas from all over the organization and weaves them together into the next big thing. All while keeping morale and communication high.
Yes, curiosity and courage are integral component of life-long success. So how do we make sure to develop these in our children.
We don’t have to develop it; we have to protect it.
Waldorf educators believe that every child comes into the world with curiosity and the courage to follow it. We know that when encouraged to follow their curiosity and rewarded for sharing what they’ve learned, children grow into adults who lead fearlessly, define their needs and those of the people who depend on them, and endeavor to succeed in all aspects of their life.
High school is an important time in your teen's development and preparation for a successful future.
Click here to discover how to choose the right high school for your teen.
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10 High-Performance Attributes of a Waldorf High School Student
10 High-Performance Attributes of a Waldorf High School Student
And Why They Are Important for Success
Make sure your teen's school prioritizes these traits. Click here to download the high school checklist now!
The world is breathing.
As one, the people in it are lunging forward at a rate faster than ever before. Driven to keep up with constant advancements and innovations in technology and techno-human interaction, the places available in society morph and mutate ceaselessly.
A place in society is foundational to an individual’s wellbeing. And though change happens so quickly today and many struggle with internal turmoil as a result, there are those who seem to thrive in this emerging socio-economic environment. In many cases, they not only adapt but drive change. They seem unphased by the insecurity of changes in their job description, responsibilities, available technology or anything else.
They are not only successful, they thrive. But why?
The attributes of those who bloom in today’s fluid world are simple, but must be cultivated early in life and tested in the teen years. Waldorf education is designed to not only educate, but enhance the development of the whole child. As a result, Waldorf educated students emerge from high school with these ten high-performance, highly demanded attributes.
Empathy. Empathy is not just for counselors, teachers, and therapists anymore. Today, empathy is a basic life skill that can be neither overlooked compensated for. As automation becomes an ever more present in our daily interactions, the ability to relate to each other on a deep level becomes increasingly important in interpersonal communication.
From sales to medicine; from customer service to engineering, those who cannot empathize, build relationships, and predict need cannot excel in their work.
Academic Confidence. It’s long been understood that confidence, one’s belief in themselves, is the spice of success. However, overreaching confidence can become detrimental when not focused. Academic confidence is specific. Waldorf high school students are challenged to learn that they can learn. They leave high school confident in their ability to identify problems and investigate solutions.
Curiosity. Innovation is the currency of today’s economy. But there can be no innovation without curiosity.
Curiosity is the insatiable drive to find the answers. There is a difference between solutions and answers. A solution may address the observable result of a problem, but the solution is the end of the road until another problem arises. Conversely, one who seeks answers seeks to understand a problem to the fullest. Curiosity drives Waldorf graduates to observe, investigate, and understand on a deep level, driving innovation and long-term progress.
Experience. What is experience, and how can teenagers get it? Experience is failure. For many parents, it’s just so difficult to let our children fail. We want to spare them the pain. We fear failure will hurt their confidence. We believe the road to success is paved with achievement. It’s not until college or even later, when our children fail for the first time in their lives, that we discover we failed to prepare them to recover and learn from their mistakes.
In high school, youth are driven to make sense of the world. They build the assumptions and belief they’ll take with them into the rest of their lives. Experience, particularly the experience of overcoming failure, helps young people develop into resilient adults.
Personal Development. Before adulthood, personal development is a physiological function of growth. Later, however, we must actively and consciously endeavor to continue growing toward our best selves.
Waldorf education prepares graduates to strive continuously toward personal growth and development. They’re challenged not only to examine the world around them, but the world within them. And they career this ability into the rest of their life.
Holism. Holism is a philosophy which presumes that parts of a whole are intimately interconnected. But it’s not just a philosophy, holism is a way of life. Waldorf education teaches students to explore the interconnectedness of the world, which develops into a deeper understanding of the systems that move the world.
A holistic mindset is vital to an individual’s wellbeing. Recognizing the interconnectedness of internal systems empowers an individual to truly understand and serve themselves, promoting resilience and true health.
Self-direction. In a world where change is the only thing we can count on, it’s not enough to wait for instructions. To be successful, one must be able to assess circumstances and direct their own actions. This is so not only for employment, but for life.
A self-directed individual can look beyond the norm to piece together a fulfilling life for themselves based on their own needs and joys. These are the individuals who are least susceptible to mental illness and spiritual fatigue.
Make sure your teen's school prioritizes these traits. Click here to download the high school checklist now!
Intrinsic Motivation. How do we determine which actions have value, and which do not? How do we prepare our children to do the right thing, to follow the difficult path even when there is not measurable reward on the other end?
We empower them to motivate themselves.
Where behaviors motivated extrinsically depend on a clear and measurable reward offered from another party, intrinsic motivation comes from within. Those who are intrinsically motivated, who develop the ability to motivate their own behavior, are more consistent in their pursuits, and therefore more successful long term.
Problem Finding. Problem solving is important, but those focused on problem solving can’t get ahead. When change occurs as rapidly as in today’s world, problem solvers take a back seat to problem finders.
Problem finding is a profound skill. The problem finder can envision a topic, examine it from many angles, and preempt problems that may arise. Problem finders can test solutions before implementation, resulting in change that promotes greater cohesion. They excel at assessing concerns in both tangible and intangible circumstances, making them driving innovators and more compelling communicators at once.
Courage. All the skills in the world are useless without courage. Without the courage to ask the hard questions, find the answers, present those answers, break out of the mold and challenge the status quo, ability cannot manifest into results.
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