6 ways to be a more empathetic parent, partner and friend with Dr. Nissen, MD
Meet Dr. Nissen
Dr. Nissen, MD is a doctor who focuses on brain health and cognitive behavior therapy. He wrote a children’s book about empathy, and so that is what I’m going to have him talk with us about today.
So I am a medical doctor and a cognitive behavioral therapist in Boston. I primarily work with adults actually and how this came to happened was when I was working in the jail system or the correctional system and I was actually working with the juvenile patients in the mornings.
And then I was with the adults in the afternoons when I was doing some of this cognitive behavioral therapy work in the evenings and I begin to see sort of this continuum of that, kids would be in the office for things acting violently against someone else they would somebody that maybe call them a name or did something to a friend and they got into a fight with them. In the afternoons I'd be with the adults and see that it was the same things.
It really seemed like there were so many opportunities that if I could take the things that I was learning in my work and cognitive behavioral therapy and just integrate them earlier on, it would maybe help these kids to avoid getting into these fights or into these interpersonal conflicts, that it could also help to prevent them illnesses is causing the things like the substance use and that it prevent them from going down this path.
That's that's so common in our country and I was beginning to see more and more as an uncle myself, that there's so many opportunities in kids to try to be a little bit more active and how we cultivate emotional intelligence and empathy with our kids. So that's why I decided to write this book seem like there's nothing else like it out there. So I thought there's a need that needed to be filled.
So something in my family, I'm really focused on emotional intelligence and letting them feel their feelings and learning how to manage some of their feelings in appropriate ways. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry. Here's what you can do with that. One thing that I've always done since I was a preschool teacher and also a parent if I don't force my kid to say sorry because I feel like just saying sorry is not helping that child feel better. So, for example, if Charlie hurts his little sister Maelie, and he just said sorry and walks away then for him he's just like if I say, sorry, I'm done check it off and then I can go on doing my thing. Whereas if we say, okay, how can you help her feel better?
I feel like that's encouraging empathy and helping them actually think about it. So what do you have to say about that?
It is a perfect example of how you can be mindful about incorporating emotional intelligence and parenting because like you're saying just saying I'm sorry is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for a lot of kids you just they say and then they're they're released from from their Duty and what you're doing instead is focusing them to have to imagine a little bit of the impact their actions on another person.
So emotional intelligence based on a few different definitions is really an ability to
First of all - perceive emotions.
The second part of it is understanding the emotion.
Thinking about the context and how context create emotions.
The next part of it is is managing our positive emotions and managing our negative emotions.
These four pieces are what define emotional intelligence.
Lauren: I feel like I have a harder time having empathy for someone if I don't understand their context for example, so this past year is like the hardest year of my life like crazy wise I had brain surgery in November and they thought it was cancer. Anyways, it was this crazy experience one and then I had a miscarriage and then there were families that have it was just like one thing after the next, and I hadn't up to that point ever had major surgery. My family was like a rock and then they had relationship problems and that was really hard and then the miscarriage anyways, I feel like having those experiences helped me finally be empathetic towards others in similar situations, but still like sometimes I'll see someone get a diagnosis and I'll want to be sad for them, but I feel like I can't fully get empathetic because I can't understand the context.
Dr. Nissen: Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm sorry that you had all those things that happened. He said that sound like a crazy year, but I think that my answer to that is hopefully a bit long too reassuring in that it's I think it's pretty simple of how we can be empathetic for other people and it doesn't rely on just suddenly feeling a certain way to to be able to be empathetic. It's actually real actions that we can take real words that we can say that have been shown three different studies to help people to feel more listen to and like they have a better relationship with faith in the studies. It's with their therapist, but it could be with a friend or anyone in your life. So so empathy is literally empathy.
What is empathy?
So em is “into” and pathy or path is “to feel” so “feeling into somebody.”
So empathy is feeling into somebody and the way that I like to think about it is if somebody gives you some sort of emotional expression — for example, they’re sad and they say something really sad to you or they're really angry and they say something really angry to you. It's like their face is a wall between their inner self and what they're saying, and they opened it up. It looks really dark in there and what most people do as they say things like, “oh, don't worry about it things would be better” or "just go for a walk you'll feel better” and what those things are doing is they're it's like somebody showed you it's dark inside and you're being like “Jeez that’s dark.… I'm going to move on with my life,” you're not curious.
Empathy is to feel into somebody — it is like seeing the darkness inside and taking a flashlight and trying to go inside this cave and look around at every little crevice inside. You're wanting to really dive in and see what are all the thoughts that are being thought and the feelings that you felt and people feel a need for this. You may notice if you're ever, with somebody who is really sad or who was really mad.
Somebody's angry with you. It may feel like the repeating themselves over and over they say the same thing when they're angry at you over and over and the reason why they're doing this page is not that they're being annoying or because they're being silly. It's because they think they're saying something really important and you haven't given them any sign that you've heard it.
And so with empathy what we're doing is we are showing to somebody two things first of all that we are a willing and active participant in the conversation and second of all that it is a safe environment to be emotional and make mistakes and to say whatever's on your mind.
There are six different ways that I suggest that people do this.
A WILLING AND ACTIVE PARTICIPANT
1. Ask questions. BE CURIOUS.So to be curious and be like, oh why did you feel that way or what? What do you think was what do you think made your day this way?
2. Thought empathy. Repeating back to somebody their own words. It may sound shallow or kind of ridiculous. But you have no idea how much it means to people to hear that they're being heard. So, if they say something like man, my boss is such a jerk and he did this thing and just feels like he's always, disrespecting me. I mean like you repeat back to him like man, I am your boss is such a jerk and it totally feels like he just keeps taking advantage of you.
3. Feeling Empathy. Try to take what the person's saying and come up with an emotion that reflects it. “My boss is being such a jerk and and and he keeps disrespecting me” you could be like “man, that must feel really frustrating or that must feel super belittling.” Use words like frustrating or belittling, that synthesize what the person's words are trying to reflect. This is part of being a willing and active participant.
SAFE ENVIRONMENT TO SHARE WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND
4. Be vulnerable too!
5. Validate. It makes sense you would feel that way.
6. Compliment them. Build their confidence.
Practical ways to actually empathize. It’s not soft sweet whispers or smiling, it’s saying the words and questions to connect and get deep/vulnerable with people around us.
How to parent with empathy and teach your children empathy?
MODEL EMPATHY using the 6 steps with your children
Build emotional intelligence
Talk about emotions
Read books including Emily Empathy
Is this a trait we are born with, or can we learn empathy?
Empathy is certainly something that we can learn and it's not something that we're born with and it's something that we practice and that we come to live out and it begins with a foundation of strong emotional intelligence as kids.
Empathy is literally being curious and trying to draw out everything from inside a person's mind that is making them feel a certain way and we can start to develop this with kids by working with them to perceive their emotions and understand the context that creates those emotions in themselves and other people. It's my hope that this will lead to stronger friendships, stronger relationships and better performance in life, better social skills, the prevention of mental illness and all the physical, illness and sadness that we're seeing in the world.
My hope is that these things will help to make it better.
If 10 people share their favorite bedtime story and tag @dr.nissen and @xolaurenpace, he will read us a bedtime story on the gram!
Find Dr. Nissen
IG: @Dr.Nissen
Youtube: "Brain Health with Dr. Nissen"
Podcast: "Brain Health with Dr. Nissen"