Can Compassion Be Taught?
It is never too early to begin teaching, or molding, a child to be compassionate. Good parent-infant bonding, which includes sensitive, warm, soothing, comforting, secure handling, timely feeding, eye contact, and gentle vocalizing, provides a solid foundation for an infant to develop into a warm, caring individual. The infant requires that all his or her needs are met in a timely manner, time and time again, by a loving, stable caregiver, in order to feel secure and to develop a sense of basic trust in his or her environment. Then, the child can be relaxed deep inside. Basically, a child learns compassion by being treated lovingly and compassionately, by parents who are themselves compassionate people. If children are treated too harshly, if their needs are not met very well, or if they are ignored too much, they probably will not learn to be compassionate. Abused and/or neglected children start walling off their warm feelings to try to protect themselves from hurt at incredibly young
