Addressing Bullying: The Role of Empathy Education

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More children are committing suicide as a result of teasing and judgement of their peers both in school and online. Many teachers have been noticing a “Broken Moral Compass” (Barnwell), in the students they teach. Many parents and administrators are questioning who technically has the job of teaching children empathy and acceptance. They want to know who holds the responsibility to teach today’s youth their morals. To teach empathy and compassion is a job that should be left to parents and guardians. Bullying is an issue that needs to be addressed by the individual parents of the children who are inflicting pain into the lives of other children. For example, Lizzie Velasquez’s movie A Brave Heart detailed her life dealing with bullying. In this movie, someone on YouTube, a video sharing site, posted a video with images of Lizzie, calling her the Ugliest Woman in the World. This was devastating to Lizzie, who had also dealt with bullying in school. When she confronted the …show more content…

In an interview with the Washington Post, Weissbourd said, “We need to get parents to tone down some of that focus on whether their kids are happy and make the higher priority being responsible for others.” This puts the pressure on parents to stop focusing so much on their child’s emotions, and more on the emotions of the people their children affect. When a parent solely focuses on their child’s emotions, that child does not have the experience of taking another person’s emotions into consideration. That child will be under the impression that only their own emotions matter. The children begin to care so much about their own emotions and so little about the emotions of others. Doing this leads to self centered children who don’t consider others. Schools cannot reverse the actions of the parents. The people who work there cannot reverse the effect it has on

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