Developing the skill of perspective taking is a challenge; it’s something people need to practice from the time they’re young. So it’s imperative that we try to cultivate it in our kids.
There are different levels of perspective taking, of course, and more sophisticated versions may elude very young children. The best we may be able to hope for in the case of a 4-year-old is the rather primitive ethics of the Golden Rule. We might say (in a tone that sounds like an invitation to reflect, rather than a reprimand), “I notice you finished all the juice and didn’t leave any for Amy. How do you think you would feel if Amy did that?” The premise of this question, probably correct, is that both kids like juice and would be disappointed to find none available.
But George Bernard Shaw reminded us that this sort of assumption doesn’t always make sense. “Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you,” he advised. “Their tastes may not be the same.” And, we might add, their needs or values or backgrounds might not be the same either. Older children and adults can realize that it’s not enough to imagine ourselves in someone else’s situation: we have to imagine what they’re feeling in that situation. We have to see with their eyes rather than just with our own. We have to—if I may switch metaphors—ask not just what it’s like to be in their shoes, but what it’s like to have their feet.
So how can we promote perspective taking in our children? How can we help them to develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how things look from points of view other than their own? First, we can set an example. After a supermarket cashier says something rude to us, we can comment to our child who has witnessed this: “Huh. He didn’t seem to be in a very good mood today, did he? What do you think might have happened to that man that made him so grouchy? Do you think someone might have hurt his feelings?”
It is enormously powerful to say things like this to our kids, to teach them that we need not respond to an individual who acts unpleasantly by getting angry—or, for that matter, by blaming ourselves. Rather, we can attempt to enter the world of that other person. It’s our choice: Every day our children can watch us as we imagine someone else’s point of view—or they can watch us remain self-centered. Every day they can witness our efforts to see strangers as human beings—or they can witness our failure to do so.
Besides setting an example, we can also encourage perspective taking by discussing books and television shows with our kids in a way that highlights the characters’ diverse perspectives. (“We’re seeing all of this through the eyes of the doctor, aren’t we? But what do you think the little girl is feeling about what just happened?”) We can even use perspective taking as a tool to help siblings resolve their conflicts. “Okay,” we might say, after a blowup. “Tell me what just happened, but pretend you’re your brother and describe how things might have seemed to him.”
Finally, we can help younger children become more sensitive to others’ emotions by gently directing their attention to someone’s tone of voice, posture, or facial expression and by inviting them to reflect on what that person might be thinking and how he or she might be feeling. The point here is to build a skill (learning how to read other people), but also to promote a disposition (wanting to know how others are feeling and being willing to figure it out): “I know Grandma said it would be okay to go on another walk with you, but I noticed that she paused a few seconds before agreeing. And did you see how tired she seemed when she sat down just now?”
The very act of teaching kids to pick up on such cues can help them to develop the habit of seeing more deeply into others. It will encourage them to experience the world as another person does and perhaps to get a feel for what it’s like to be that other person. This is a major step toward wanting to help rather than to hurt—and, ultimately, toward becoming a better person oneself.
CAN I TRUST YOU? A CONVERSATION BETWEEN PAUL EKMAN AND HIS DAUGHTER EVE
Jason Marsh
GROWING UP IN SAN FRANCISCO, a city renowned for its hedonism, Eve Ekman faced more than her fair share of temptations, especially when she got involved in the local punk scene as a teenager. Like most adolescents, she felt the urge to do some things she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of—go to clubs on weeknights, dabble with alcohol and marijuana—and which would require lying about where she was going and what she planned to do once she got there.
But unlike those other kids, Eve has a father who is one of the world’s leading experts on detecting lies. Paul Ekman, a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, pioneered the scientific study of facial expressions and body language. For more than 50 years, his research has identified how emotions are subtly expressed through nonverbal cues; for much of that time, he has devoted special attention to how and why people tell lies and how others can catch those lies. His work has been used by police departments, teachers, and even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In 2001, the American Psychological Association named Ekman one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century.
It sounds like every kid’s worst nightmare: the parent who always knows whether you’re telling the truth. But when it came down to it, Paul Ekman’s scientific expertise on lying was of limited usefulness to Paul Ekman the parent.
“I have been studying lying professionally for more than 20 years, but it was not easy to deal with it as a parent,” he wrote in his 1989 book, Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness, which includes chapters by his wife, Mary Ann Mason, a professor and former dean at the University of California, Berkeley, and his son Tom, Eve’s older brother. Indeed, as that book makes clear, it is one thing to be able to catch a kid in a lie; it’s something very different to be able to raise a trustworthy child.
So how does an expert on lying, deception, and truthfulness try to foster trust and trustworthiness? Paul and Eve, who is now 28, recently sat down with Greater Good’s editor-in-chief, Jason Marsh, to discuss the benefits of trusting your kids (even when it’s nerve-wracking to do so), how to encourage trustworthy behavior, and what it takes to build trust between parents and children.
EVE EKMAN: Do you ever remember catching me for anything when I broke your trust, or a time you caught me dead in a lie?
PAUL EKMAN: Nope. When I suspected that you had done something wrong, I went to some length to avoid putting you in a position where you would have to lie. Instead, when I was worried about you, I would ask leading questions like, “Is there something on your mind? Is there something you want to talk about?”
In that way, you had the opportunity to disclose on your own. I did not want to ask you every day if you had gotten into trouble, but there was a rule of disclosure. There were very few things I expected, but if you did not tell me, it was a lie.
I remember once, when I had heard you come in after curfew, I asked you, “What happened the other night? I heard you come in late.” So I was already telling you, “I know you did that,” without trying to catch you in a lie.
The issue clearly arises in every generation. I lied to my parents all the time. They were very restrictive, invading my privacy continuously. The challenge of my adolescence was learning how to outwit them, which I did. I had an entirely secret life.