Robin Grille is an "empathy farmer", father, a psychologist in
private practice with twenty years' experience, and a parenting educator.
His articles on parenting and child development have been widely published
in Australia and overseas. Robin's first book: 'Parenting for a Peaceful
World' has received international acclaim and led to speaking
engagements around Australia, USA and New Zealand. 'Heart to Heart
Parenting' is Robin's second book.
A passionate speaker and social change activist, Robin's extensive research
has led him to feel that improved attention to babies' and children's
emotional needs is the most powerful way to move societies toward
sustainability and peace.
"The human brain and heart that are met primarily with empathy
in
the
critical early years cannot and will not grow to
choose a violent or
selfish life."
"Building
of human empathy is one brick at a time and sometimes
the
bricks come down in the
building process."
"Nobody
can escape life's struggles and traumas,
but those who have experienced
the empathy that helped
them build a strong sense of self in childhood
tend to have
a strong foundation for emotional resilience and can draw
on positive internal resources to help themresolve and rebound."
"The science of
empathy is now one of the most celebrated subjects of psychological and
neuro-psychological enquiry and it has the potential to transform human
society in spectacular ways. For instance, if a human being's
central nervous system carries blueprints for empathy, and if the health
and vitality of one's empathy circuits depend on one's environment from
conception through adulthood, what does that mean about our moralistic
judgments of good and evil, and of punishment and reward? This
well-written piece on the latest findings on empathy and on its
limitations offers some surprising and heartening answers."
"Good" Children - at What Price?
The Secret Cost of Shame
by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor "While shaming has the power to control behavior, it
does not have the power to teach empathy. When we repeatedly label a
child "naughty" or otherwise, we condition them to focus inwardly, and
they become pre-occupied with themselves and their failure to please.
Thus children learn to label themselves, but learn nothing about
relating, or about considering and comprehending the feelings of others.
For empathy to develop, children need to be shown how others feel. In
calling children "naughty", for example, we have told the child nothing
about how we feel in response to their behavior.
Children cannot learn about caring for others' feelings, nor about how
their behavior impacts on others, while they are thinking: "There is
something wrong with me." In fact, psychotherapists and researchers are
finding that individuals who are more prone to shame, are less capable
of empathy toward others, and more self-preoccupied.
The only true basis for morality is a deeply felt empathy toward the
feelings of others. Empathy is not necessarily what drives the
"well-behaved" "good boy" or "good girl".
by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor
Emotions are Not Bad Behavior
by Robin Grille
Excerpted from Heart to Heart Parenting
"It's a fact of human relationships that our capacity for listening
is elusive; we lose it, we regain it, we lose it again. Sometimes it
is hard to see whether we are listening so that our children really
feel heard. We kid ourselves. We think we are listening when really we
are avoiding contact - and then we are bewildered by and surprised at
our child's frustration. It can be very useful to get a clear picture
of what is listening and what is not.
When our own fears, our shame, our jealousies or our emotional
exhaustion get in the way, we tend to play some pretty clever games to
deflect our children's communications so that their feelings won't
touch us.
One of the biggest reasons we avoid listening is because our
children's disappointments make us feel guilty. Our evasive tactics
are called "empathy blockers". Empathy blockers save us the trouble of
listening, but they cost us our connection with each other.
Sometimes we use empathy blockers inadvertently because we are
anxiously trying to save our children from emotional pain. Ironically,
the greatest salve for our children comes from being heard, not from
us trying to change how they feel. For all of these reasons, we all
use empathy blockers from time to time, quite automatically and
unconsciously."
Parent Guilt - A Silent Epidemic by Robin Grille
"Guilt and remorse are very different; in fact they are opposites.
Remorse is about the other: it is about allowing their feelings,
listening with empathy, and it is about the desire and effort to repair
any hurt we may have caused....
Given this legacy, can you still expect yourself to be an expert at
meeting your child's emotional needs? We are collectively beginners,
trying to heal ourselves while creating a new model for empathic
parenting. Considering this historical backdrop, is it easier for you to
acknowledge and forgive your mistakes? For sure, we all have blind spots
and as parents we occasionally stumble. Some of us are good at empathy
but have trouble asserting strong boundaries....
Empathy can be a hard-won skill. Psychologists and counsellors spend
hundreds of hours learning how to listen to people's feelings so that
they feel heard. Despite all that training and even after years of
experience, not one of us can claim that we don't need to keep improving
our ability to empathize. Good listening requires a conscious effort to
be humble, open, and to set judgment and expectations aside - we can
keep learning this forever."
Post Natal Depression - Mental Illness or Natural Reaction? by Robin
Grille
"That is why every mother needs the ongoing empathic support of her
family, and friends who can listen intently, who have traveled this
territory, and can mentor her through it. She needs friends who can hold
her, share their own experiences with her, and reassure her that her
emotional ups and downs are OK."
Empathic Parenting: Landscape of the Soul by Gary Caganoff
"The empathic parenting style is based on very different ethics of
child raring to the dominant punitive authoritarian parenting of the
pre WWII generations, and different again from the permissive
parenting style that grew out of Dr. Benjamin Spock's work post WWII
(Grille, 2005, p79, p85).
Both these latter styles of parenting are still the dominant
child-raring practices in our society.
The authoritarian style of parenting aims to, 'train the child to
conform to cultural norms...
Where the parent, while (perhaps) not lacking affection, tends to view
the child through a moral lens that dichotomises behaviour into 'good'
and 'bad' (Grille, 2005, p69).
This style of child raring enforces discipline and control in order to
bend the child to fit parental and social expectations, which limit
self-expression and tries to create the 'good child'...
The opposite of authoritarian 'control' parenting is permissive
'out-of-control' parenting, where you, as the parent, allow your child
to control you, the parent, through your own compliance, indulgence,
or indifference (Paul, 2007, web page). "
"Ground-breaking discoveries about early childhood and the human brain
have offered vital clues about the roots of human violence and social
disharmony. Our brains' empathy centres grow - or fail to grow -
according to how we are nurtured. Avalon's Robin Grille will cite
several examples of startling advances in democracy, peace and social
harmony that have resulted from child-rearing reforms around the
world. What are the specific implications for parents, teachers and
social policy makers? Discover your personal role in this unfolding
global movement!"
2:30 : The brain of a child grows in the way
that child is treated. So in an empathic environment the brain of this
child grows in one way. But in an environment that is harsh, punitive
and cold, the same child's brain would grow quite differently. So, our
early childhood relationships grow our brain. The shape our behaviour
and that is how we create the kind of societies that we are going to
have."
Have at least 10 empathy centers in the brain.
We have mirror neurons.
Empathy centers grow with nourishment and use.
When a child receives empathy, this grows new neural pathways in
the brains empathy centers.
Stress kills neurons
"This peace code in the human brain, it lived in the empathy
centers. It's hard wired there as a potentiality awaiting the right
input form the outside so that it can grow to full maturity."
Interview
with author Robin Grille of Parenting for a Peaceful World.
"Particularly in the last few decades, child-rearing approaches have
been evolving so rapidly overall towards much more empathic and much
more caring, nurturing, and natural ways to relate to children and
already that has begun to make a big difference in the world now. I
like looking at that sense of evolution because we continue evolving
child-rearing customs in this way. Our prospects for the future are
extremely, extremely positive....
or instance, we are learning that
any act of tenderness and affection towards a small child, even an
older child, literally causes a cascade of the well-being hormones in
the child's body and around the child's brain such as oxytocin. That
is a hormone. It is a brain chemical that brings about deep feelings
of love and empathy. Enough of it even leads to states of bliss....
Quite specifically in the areas of the brain that regulate emotion, so
that the more oxytocin a child gets and the baby gets it is like the
healthier their brain is going to be and the areas of the brain the
enable a human being to be loving and full of empathy for other
humans, for other people, for empathy for our life, those are the
areas of the brain that are being nourished by oxytocin. Now, to me I
think that is probably the single most exciting discovery in the
history of science and the most important discovery."
Quotes by
Robin Grille
"Authoritarian parenting and
schooling moves us a bit more in the direction of dictatorship and
environmental abuse. Empathic and authoritative parenting and
schooling moves us a bit towards democratic, peaceful and sustainable
society."
"Building
of human empathy is one brick at a time and sometimes
thebricks come down in thebuilding process."
"Nobody
can escape life's struggles and traumas,
but those who have experienced
the empathy that helped
them build a strong sense of self in childhood
tend to have
a strong foundation for emotional resilience and can draw
on positive internal resources to help themresolve and rebound."
"The human brain and heart that are met primarily with empathy in the
critical early years cannot and will not grow to choose a violent or
selfish life."
"Our job is to be the teachers of empathy - We are empathy farmers!"
