Post written by Laura White for Ashoka's Start Empathy Initiative, a whole child partner organization. Also published in Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
How early should you be thinking about developing empathy in your child? According to Dr. Terrie Rose, Ashoka Fellow and Founder of Baby's Space, the work of developing a child's emotional readiness for school and life happens before they are even born. In the following interview, Dr. Rose shares some of her insights and advice from her new book, Emotional Readiness: How Early Experience and Mental Health Predict School Success, on how to help children be empathetic and healthy individuals.Start Empathy: Dr. Rose, when you decided to write Emotional Readiness, what goals did you have in mind for the book?
Terrie Rose: As a society and as educators, we spend a lot of time talking about children that are "reading ready" and are performing well on tests by third grade. Yet if you ask a kindergarten teacher what he wants his kindergartners to be able to do, he doesn't say that he wants them to know their letters and numbers. Literacy and numeracy are outputs. Instead, he wants them to get along, pay attention, and be willing to learn. This emotional readiness is key to school success. My book is about switching the conversation and promoting the idea that kids have to be ready to be friends, regulate their emotions, and have the confidence that they can
