The beginning of my empathy lessons

By Lou Agosta on August 28, 2023

My empathy lessons started when I was about four years old. My Mom would tell me bedtime stories. Right before bed, she would weave a narrative out of the significant events of a day in the life of an “on the go,” four-year-old boy. She would make a whole out of my experiences by telling me a story about this imaginary boy—his name was “Doodle Bug.”

For example, in a favorite story, Doodle Bug would ride his tricycle, and he would go through the park to visit the Indian Chief. He would make a treaty with the Chief. Then he would ride to the bakery. At the bakery he would sample a selection of cookies and cakes. Always the talented young man, Doodle Bug would “stand on his noodle for apple strudel.”

In the moment, as a four-year-old, this was hilariously funny. I had no idea what apple strudel was, and when I found out a little later, I did not particularly like it. To me, the suspense in the story was palpable. Would the Indian Chief (surely a father figure) be open to a treaty or would hostilities break out as in the cowboy movies that were popular at the time? The rhyme with which the story ended released the suspense in the narrative. It was funny, provoking a laugh, and it brought the story to a satisfying, dramatic close, clearing the way for a soothing transition to sleep.

This was my Mom’s empathic response to a busy, on the go, growing boy. I acknowledge her for it; and my emotional life and future were richer thanks to her. She took my experiences on a given day, wove them into a nuanced narrative, and gave them back to me as a bedtime story. I recognized the experiences as my own. I recognized that she got who I was for her. Brilliant. I was mesmerized. I was spell bound. I was soothed. I was comforted. I was stimulated (but not too much). This was the empathic moment.

Mom was tuning down the day as she was tuning up the empathy for me. She was calming down the day as she was also tuning up my empathy for myself. I was empathically transitioned from a busy day to a state of restfulness and readiness for sleep without the anxieties that can sometimes accompany a child at bedtime.

This was not to say that my childhood was all rainbows and balloons. There were plenty of upsets, too. It is not that I never had anxieties, but, in this case, they were over shadowed by the good stuff. This is a fine example of things going just right for a change; and how empathic responsiveness made a positive difference in one young boy’s life.

Story time—narrative—gives back to the other person his own experience in a way that he can recognize and integrate it. In this case, Mom wove a narrative out of the events of the day, helping her child integrate his experiences. When the other person recognizes his own experience in the story, as I did, then the empathic loop is complete. I got empathy at the end of the day.

Note that, in this and similar situations, a lot of work has to occur prior to the story. The narrator (Mom, in this case) must have access to the events being woven into the story. Her empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, and empathic interpretation were activated and engaged. I hasten to add that the distinction “empathy” was not made explicit. This was just Mom being Mom—a parent doing here job and getting it just right.

Therefore, advice to parents: if you want to expand your empathy with your child, and your child’s empathy for her- or himself, have a bed time story. Bring the day to a close in an orderly way. If you can make up a story, so much the better. But not everyone is a natural born storyteller, as my Mom seems to have been. If you want to read a story, that is good, too. Pick something that you think will resonate with the child, or let the child decide what she or he wants. In the case of my daughter, after awhile, I read her whatever she requested. The genius of the “out there” and wholesome sense of humor of Richard Scarry for children of tender age also deserves honorable mention. The point is to have that time together—that, too, is the empathic moment.

Then when tough times occurred—I do not go into the details since my now grown-up daughter will read this—emerging adults learning how to handle things (and sometimes mishandling things), I went down to dorm and said, “Okay, get your stuff—you are coming home for awhile.” And, low and behold, she listened! She knew I was concerned about her and had her well-being in mind and she listened; and then she got a job for awhile and went back to school a year later. Now flourishing and working on flourishing in ways that were not visible at the time, this is not a fairy tale ending, but is perhaps good enough in this world of helicopter parents, absent parents, and failures to launch.

For those who would like a further inquiry into how empathy is defined – storytelling shows up in many contexts, but when it builds an empathic relationship, storytelling falls under “empathic responsiveness” –

Empathy consists of four parts or dimensions, which, in turn, form the integral whole of authentic relatedness between individuals in community. These four dimensions are receptivity, understanding, interpretation, and responsiveness:

Empathic receptivity is the dimension of empathy that consists in being open to the other person’s feelings and experiences. It often presents as a vicarious experience.
Empathic understanding is the dimension of empathy that engages the other person as possibility in his or her humanity. It often presents as possibilities of accomplishment, fulfillment, flourishing.
Empathic interpretation is the dimension of empathy that takes a walk “in the other’s shoes,” the part corresponding to the folk definition of empathy. It often presents as shifts in perspective or points of view.
Empathic responsiveness is that dimension of empathy that provides a gracious and generous listening as the source of a response that offers the other person her or his own experience back in a gesture, statement, story, or narrative. It often presents as a short narrative (“micro narrative”) or story, also called “rhetorical empathy.”

These four dimensions of a rigorous and critical empathy go around, but not exactly in a circle. One does not end up exactly where one started; one makes progress—progress up the winding and twisting hairpin curves of the mountain of human understanding. One goes “round the mountain,” ending up at the same coordinates at which one started, but higher up the mountain. Different perspectives open up as one goes up.

Those in the empathic relationship have advanced upward, coming back to where they started, but at a higher level, forming an upward spiral, round the mountain of empathic understanding of other human beings. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: How empathy works: The four dimensions of empathy

One can start at any point with any one of these dimensions and, as noted, go “round the mountain,” engaging the other three dimensions, forming the integrated whole that we call “empathy.” One has a different perspective on the relationship, one’s own contribution to it, and the other person’s role. One key empathy lesson that drives this work forward and gets repeated at important points is: the four dimensions of empathy are a coherent whole. All four dimensions of empathy (empathic receptivity, empathic understanding, empathic interpretation, and empathic responsiveness) link to one another in a round trip extending from receptivity to understanding, from understanding to interpretation, from interpretation to response, and back. One can start anywhere in the cycle, and go around covering all the bases and end up back with the distinction with which one started, albeit at a “higher” level. You start with empathy and end up with empathy, expanded and (to shift the directional metaphor) “deepened” empathy in relating to the other person and to the community made up of other persons.

References

This post is an except from –

Lou Agosta. (2018). Empathy Lessons. Chicago: Two Pears Press: pp. 38 – 42.