Prioritizing Care for Others

Empathy is an important -- and sometimes complex -- emotion for young people to grasp and display.  A recent report by Harvard University found that many youth tend to value aspects of personal success over concern for others.    

While personal success, achievement and happiness, are important, it's also critical that young people understand the need to care for others.  Now especially, we must make sure that we're showing youth the value in caring for others - not just ourselves - and modeling that for them. 

How can we help instill the values of care and fairness in youth? The Harvard report has some suggestions: 

• Provide youth opportunities to practice caring and being helpful.
• Help youth broaden their circle of concern by understanding those close to them as well as perspectives from others.
• Ensure that youth have strong moral role models and mentors.
• Guide youth in managing negative or destructive feelings and learning to cope with them in healthy ways. 

Click here to read the full report from the Making Caring Common Project by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.