- St. Vincent Martyr School
- SVMS Features - January 2018
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Learning about Kindness & Empathy
In its on-going campaign for kindness, SVMS invited Katie Hurley, a nationally recognized child and adolescent psychotherapist, to conduct workshops with students in Kindergarten through Grade 5. Using simple metaphors and age-appropriate examples, Katie explained how children can empathetic to others and challenged them to be Kindness Warriors.
Using a paper heart, she demonstrated how unkind words can crinkle that heart. Conversely, she showed how even small words and acts of kindness can smooth out those crinkles and restore the heart.
The children explored the ways in which people can be injured by gossip and bullying, with potentially life-altering consequences. She helped the students explore ways in which they can combat these situations in creative and safe ways. By simply removing a targeted individual from a bad situation, children can undermine the bullying even if they are not feeling brave enough to confront it head on. She noted that it only takes one person to make a difference. The students shared ideas about how they could make others feel included.
Katie cleverly used a picture of an iceberg to demonstrate that the emotions we see on the surface may belie even deeper troubles below. The kids quickly recognized that not only the victim but also the bully often be dealing with complex emotions that affect their actions.
The students left each workshop not only with a deeper understanding of the causes and effects of unkindness, but tactics to employ to combat it and make kindness contagious instead.