Lord, listen to my honest prayer.  You know my heart. I pray to you, O God, because you answer me; so turn to me and listen to my words.  Protect me as you would your very eyes; hide me in the shadow of your wings.  Amen

Dear Friends,

One of the best things about Catholic Schools and, in particular, Holy Trinity, is that we are inclusive and share our Catholic ethos of caring for all especially the poor and marginalised. We do this in many ways as recently shown in our commitment to Evaland Hekima, in Kenya. But what can we do here at home every day to continue to nurture an atmosphere of inclusivity?

To be inclusive we need strong empathy skills. Empathy skills can set children up for success in life. Parents, teachers, caregivers and even siblings can play a powerful role in helping one another achieve this success.

Empathy is a person’s ability to identify and feel others concerns or so to speak to put yourself in the other person’s shoes to better understand them.

In our school community by all working together to model empathy, we help our children to embody that we can create a culture and climate that validates all, excludes none. This can be modelled by offering a solutions-based perspective, instead of joining in or validating gossip and complaints shared in carparks or online about other students, families, teachers or other members in our community.

Here are also some other ideas for parents and carers can help to develop this important virtue in many ways.

~ Let your child/children know how please you feel when they behaviour in a kind and caring way.

~ Have conversations with your child/children helping them identify how someone is feeling and what they can do if that person is feeling sad or upset.

~ Acknowledge the positive difference they make when they complete acts of kindness.

~ Kindly remind people who may be putting others down what they are doing is not acceptable.

~ Take the opportunity to talk through situations that have caused your child/children to be unhappy. Acknowledge what has caused them to be unhappy but also help them to understand other perspectives on the situation.

~ Be sure to model empathy in your interactions with others as we know your child/ children observe you closely and learn from you as one of their main role model.

Recently when discussing the importance of empathy in a school community a fellow principal shared this story.

He was alarmed to have children appear at his office door to ask him could he come to their classroom as something terrible had happened and their teacher needed his help. The principal then ask what was the terrible thing that had happened. The children then proceed to tell him how one of their fellow students had bitten another student so hard that you could see bite marks. The principal went to the classroom to help support the teacher and both students that were involved in the incident.

Once both students’ needs were attended to, the principal sat in his office and dialed the phone number of the parent of the child who had been bitten. Thinking about what he was going to tell the parent, he himself acknowledging how he would feel if he got a call from his children’s school to say that one his children had been bitten.

As the principal explained to the parent what had happened he was little taken aback from the calm response by that parent. He was expecting that the parent would in no uncertain terms tell him how unhappy they were. That they would make demands about how the child should be disciplined and even demand that the child be excluded from the school. The parent said, “How as a fellow parent can I get angry. But for the grace of God it could be my child who was the biter and I would hope that the other parents would have acknowledge that my child is not bad but is just a little boy who is trying hard to manage life and situations that he finds difficult.”

The principal concluded what a powerful lesson he himself had learnt that day. Empathy is one of life’s most important skills. This I think is a lesson for all of us.

With every best wish for a holy and peace-filled week ahead with your beautiful families,

Philippa