Teaching tolerance

As I pulled into the parking lot at school this past week listening to the news of the shooting in New Zealand I started to cry.  Shootings, hatred, anger, violence, these stories are a part of our world on a regular basis.  As I was walking into the building some questions came to mind: What is our role in creating change?  What can we do to fight the hatred in the world?  What can we do in our jobs, in our small everyday life moments to work towards an end to senseless violence?  How can we as parents and educators help in this change?

It is much easier to get through days like these when we can at least feel like we are doing something to contribute to creating a better world.  

Change can begin with our youngest students. Preschool children can be quite mean and quite intolerant.  Sometimes this is unintentional, and sometimes it seems to be experimental.  At times they may be brutally honest, saying whatever they want without considering the consequences or the effect of their words. It is our job to teach, role model and help them better understand and navigate the world around them.  We can often begin by helping a child recognize the consequences of their actions, both verbal and non-verbal.

The other day I was in a class while a group of students ages 2 and 3 watching them build with magna tiles.  Magna tiles are the most coveted building pieces in every school.  The children love them.  As they built their structures they fought, they cried, they grabbed from each other and they disagreed on who had which piece first.  This is a great teaching opportunity. They were learning to negotiate, to collaborate, to see the other person's side. I was the facilitator in all of this.  I sat by quietly, interjecting where needed, giving them adequate time to work things out on their own.  In these many moments of each day - as children disagree and quarrel - we need to make sure that we take the opportunity to teach tolerance and show the children how to consider those around them, and how their words and actions are having an impact on others. It is the beginning of teaching the “what if I were in their shoes” lesson.  Hopefully, the beginning of empathy.

The other day I saw two little girls playing together on the playground at our school.  One of the girls said, "You love me too much, I don't want to play with you anymore."  The other little girl looked so sad, I gave her a hug and said, "I'm sorry she said that, she hurt your feelings."  The first little girl then said, "Do you want to see my shirt?"  Hardly what I would call an apology, but it was a way for her to re-engage.  To me, it seemed that she had experimented with using some hurtful words.  The words had an effect, and then she wanted to take it back.

Stories like these happen all day with young children.  At times I role model a real apology and sometimes I walk them through the steps. Sometimes they do it all on their own, even at young ages.  I will see a child hurt a friend - on purpose, or by accident - and then that child will give a quick hug or kiss to make it all better.  They knew what they did and they took responsibility for their actions.  

It begins with understanding the effect of your words on another person.  For children who do not get there on their own, we need to point out: "Look at her face.  How do you think your words made her feel?"  Sometimes we need to look at pictures of faces with emotions so that children can learn to identify what a hurt face looks like.

In my example, it would have been nicer if the first little girl had said, "I don't want to play with you now, maybe later."  Building the many necessary social skills we all need goes a long way towards increasing tolerance and kindness.   It is key that we focus on these moments as we find them, too many are missed.  

In our political climate today with such strong divisions, I wonder if we are giving our children unhealthy messages.  As we agree or disagree within our communities, from within our homes, to our friends and within workplace, do we maintain a level of respect in our language and in these relationships?  Do we teach children it is ok to disagree and it is ok to have different thoughts, but we keep a level of kindness and respect in our conversations, even when we disagree?  Sometimes it’s hard to speak of the opposing side with respect.  Really, really hard.

But we should.

At the same time, we all want our children to fight against the wrongs in the world.  I am not making the case that we always need to be agreeable.  We need to disagree but can we disagree without hate?  Can we disagree without violence?

If we begin to teach it on our school playgrounds and in our communities, this will be our way of taking steps towards a world filled with greater understanding.  To feel hopeful about our world, we need to be making positive changes in our everyday lives.  Let “putting our attention where it needs to be” be one of those habits. Listen to your children play, intervene when it is necessary, role model getting along with others who are not necessarily the same.  Does this sound simple?  Try it with a friend from the other side of the political divide.