#empathy in children

[2-love-tale]

Effective Communication Skills for Kids: Building a Strong Foundation for the Future

Teach Your Child to Speak with Confidence: Essential Communication Skills for Kids of All Ages

Outline Introduction Importance of communication skills in kids’ development. Brief overview of how communication affects kids socially and academically. Why Communication Skills Matter for Kids Benefits of effective communication skills in everyday life. How good communication skills boost confidence and build relationships. Key Components of Communication Skills Active listening and the…

[stegogosaurus]

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[awesomecooperlove]

🦓🦬🦍🐃🦌🦣🐆🦒🐘LOVE COMPASSION REMORSE EMPATHY HUMANITY SOLVES EVERYTHING 🫏🦙🐐🦌🐈🐕🐩🐏

❤️❤️❤️

[palatinewolfsblog]

“Keep me away from the wisdom

which does not cry,

the philosophy

which does not laugh

and the greatness

which does not bow before children. ”

Khalil Gibran.

[mirrorofliterature]

I saw someone calling anakin an 'impossible kid' and I'm like. well that's an interesting way to say:

- former traumatised slave that's disabled because of that and is experiencing severe culture shock

but sure, it's the kid's fault, not the adults who should have been like. compassionate. to a kid. as jedi are supposed to be.

(anyway recommend me anakin culture shock fics and fics where the jedi actually accommodate him)

[soracities]

if we should protect children because they are vunerable, this means you would protect cruel children who bullies people who different than them then. the children who responsible to trauma for someone else's entire years

You're assuming that "protecting" children is the same as absolving them of responsibility and that's not what I said. All children are vulnerable, because all children are children; they don't come out of the womb with a perfectly working moral compass anymore than they come out of it waiting to hurt people--they're vulnerable because their understanding of the world is entirely at the mercy of what we, as adults, consistently tell them and show them. Children behaving cruelly aren't exempt from that--they learn that cruelty from somewhere, or someone. Your job, as the adult, is to make sure they understand that it's unacceptable so it will not happen again--but your job is also to ask why someone that young is behaving this way to begin with, so you can ensure they become better.

"Protecting" kids is not ignoring when they hurt or torment others, it's not refusing to teach them consequences or right from wrong, it's not "zero tolerance" policies in schools that treat a child being bullied and the child bullying them as equal instigators, and it's certainly not protecting them from recognizing, and atoning for, the pain they have caused someone else. You don't have to make peace with the now-adults who hurt you when you both were kids, but you cannot let the horrors of your own childhood impact how you treat or respond to the children living theirs around you right now, either.

You don't protect kids so they can get a free pass for bullying or tormenting another child. You protect them because kids are impulsive, emotionally reactive, and profoundly social (which means deeply impressionable) human beings who are still learning & processing insane amounts of information every day about what it means to be alive, to be alive as yourself, to be alive as yourself with other people. Protecting them is realising that you can't isolate the responsibility of a 10 year old from the bigger responsibility of the literal grown adults around them, adults who are in charge of teaching them about the world and how to behave in it. Whether you have children of your own in the future or not is completely irrelevant to this; we all become those adults eventually--no matter what happened to us as kids.

[backjustforberena]

They deserved more scenes together because this was too good. A panther and a rattlesnake.

[paingoes]

a softer destroyer AU…..2!!!

(part 1)

wait why is writing family drama so fun

SORRY THESE TRANSITIONS ARE KINDA CLUMSY….. bro trust

also i imagine older sabina’s voice being similar to glados :)

(Content: living weapon whumpee, royal whump, familial whump, parental death, dehumanization, beating, PTSD, implied child abuse, implied domestic abuse, brief reference to past noncon, elderly abuse?, verbal abuse, angst)

In the far corner of the room, the kid was curled up against the cushion. The needles he held moved softly, like he was afraid to make too much noise with them. Sabina watched him through the corner of her eye.

Delta seemed to leave every room that they entered in the beginning. Something in her sunk at the thought. Not that it was a foreign mindset to her. Loneliness was safety. Nobody could hurt her when there was no one around. She understood why he hid. But she had given him the sewing basket in hope that he wouldn’t.

Years ago, she had laughed dead in the Emperor’s face when he had first gifted it to her. She’d spent all of that week embroidering phalluses into his coronation robes. Delta, however, seemed grateful.

At eighteen, he was younger than even she had been when she was taken.

“Can I see it, honey?” 

It wasn’t an order, but he rose nigh immediately to fulfill it. He held the mass of yarn out to her, then pressed his hands back together, clasped politely. She noticed a soft blush appearing on his face.

It was a pink cat hat. He was knitting paw pads into them. 

“You’re learning so fast,” she praised, which made him shy again. She let his fidgeting go unacknowledged.

“Do this,” she instructed. “You’ve been at it for a while.”

Sabina stretched both of her wrists out. She rotated them within their sockets, then pressed against the individual joints and digits. It helped. She’d been doing a lot of physical therapy in the past years, most of which was just stretching. Delta followed her example obediently. From his expression, the process was novel to him. He seemed mildly entertained by the exercise.

She noticed, inevitably, the ring of bruises around his left wrist. This part she does not leave unacknowledged.

“Who did that to you?” She pointed at the injury, but did not touch it. 

For a second, he looked at her like she was stupid. But it fell away quickly. When he didn’t answer, she pushed again.

“Have they been hitting you?”

“…Yes, ma’am.”

It was a redundant answer. Marks like that didn’t appear on their own. But it meant he was okay with talking about it, which counted for a lot.

“How many times, since I told them not to touch you?” She could feel her own irritation spiking. “Both of them?”

“Not Simon,” Delta said hurriedly. “He hasn’t at all. He didn’t even hit me before.”

That last part was a lie. She had definitely seen the scientist swat him at least once, back when the Emperor was alive. She didn’t like the way that man talked to him. But the way Delta was staring at her begged to let it go.

“The other one, then? How many times?” she asked.

He winced.

“…I haven’t been keeping track,” he admitted. She could hear the note of irritation in his voice.

~

“Caned?” she asked. “Can you repeat that?”

Her only son twirled the butterfly knife in between his fingers. His other hand curled up by his mouth when he spoke.

“Ask him.” 

Martino stood in the center of the room, the other side of the desk. Both his hands were clasped behind him — and he was unmistakably annoyed at having been called in.

When she had gone to collect him, Sabina had found the doctor in the study — and his charge with him. Delta sat up on the table with his hair gathered up behind him. His shirt had been unbuttoned and pulled down at one shoulder, leaving half of his torso bare and exposed. To see the fabric hanging off him, to see him dead-eyed…

Her chest ached. 

Now, though, it was just the three of them. Sabina rested at the edge of the desk to face him. Paris swayed back and forth in the chair, with a weird and restless energy that resisted engagement in all directions. She did the talking.

“Do you remember the instructions I gave you?” she asked. “I thought they were quite explicit. I thought I told you not to touch him.”

“Your Majesty,” he said, all slick condescension, “I’m a doctor. How else would you have me treat him?”

“Don’t get cute. Don’t come in here and act like you need me to teach you how to be decent. You don’t touch people without permission.”

“Your Ma-

He wasn’t taking this seriously.

“You are in my house,” she yelled. “You will follow my orders. And you will keep your fucking hands to yourself! Do you understand me?!”

She stood up then, crossing the room to him. The fabric of the skirt rippled when she moved. He was taller than her, by a good amount. It didn’t matter. She was the one with the crown.

“If you hurt him again, I can have you sent to the gallows without trial. The fact you’ve even escaped it this long is a wonder in itself.”

“Your husband didn’t seem to think so.”

She slapped him. Immediately, she was overcome with a sense of disgust. Not at having done it. But at the fact she’d had to touch him.

Martino stumbled. It couldn’t have hurt that much, but he clearly wasn’t expecting it. He stumbled a bit, which she recognized as simple reflex. 

Paris didn’t.

The second Martino stepped to her, he was on him. He’d practically leaped over the table to intervene.

“Get back. Get back,” he urged, though he’d already slammed him into the wall, about as far back as he could reasonably go. His head smacked hard against the wooden surface. 

Paris had the worst of her temper. His grip on Martino’s blazer tightened. With a harsh, jerking motion, he tossed him to the floor. Though the doctor landed on his hands and knees, the ensuing kick to his ribs knocked him all the way to the ground.

“Don’t ever-“

Paris didn’t even bother to finish the sentence. He wasn’t able to. All he could focus on was driving the boot into that man’s chest as many times as he could. It wasn’t a fight, and it was barely even defense. It was just a beating. They both heard the rib crack. If he kept going, she knew he would’ve killed him.

Sabina wrapped one hand around her son’s forearm to restrain him. She did so without much enthusiasm, but some degree of obligation. Martino wouldn’t have struck her. He wasn’t suicidal. He didn’t deserve to die — at least not for that reason. 

More than anything, she didn’t want that for Paris.

He collapsed back against her. When he turned, she saw his eyes had gone glassy. She cupped his face to try and bring him away from it.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop. I’m fine. Look at me. I’m fine. Easy.”

“He was going to-“ Paris gasped. He sometimes got so angry he couldn’t breathe.

“I’m fine,” Sabina insisted. “Calm down.”

He stilled, but he did not calm. She’d gripped his wrist to restrain him — through the skin, she could still feel his pulse beating as if his heart might explode.

~

That was not the last of the re-shuffling. While they’d had succession plans drafted ever since he’d turned fifteen, that didn’t change just how brutal the transition always was. It was still abrupt, still contested. That day’s meeting was particularly bad. All of them had been recently. Paris did not greet anyone when he got back. He cursed to himself, making his way back up the stairs to the Emperor’s bedroom. They still hadn’t cleared out all the paperwork yet. He knew it could take hours of searching for him just to find the forms he was looking for, if they hadn’t been burned or lost already.

He jumped back in surprise to see Delta already inside of it. Draped in one of Constantine’s jackets, much too big on him. He’d been going through the jewelry box when the door had opened. He retreated his hand quickly as Paris entered, as if this did anything to conceal the act.

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

Delta froze. It did not help. 

Paris laughed incredulously and without humor.

“Oh my god, what the fuck are you doing?”

Delta didn’t answer, which only pissed him off more.

“It’s fucking��rude to ignore people when they’re talking to you. What’s your problem? You miss him? Because he was so fucking nice to you?”

No answer. Delta looked back at him as if he’d just slapped him in the face. But Paris couldn’t stop it once he’d started. 

“Do you actually think he loved you? Do you think he ever loved anyone but himself? Put that shit down. He bought you and he fucking ruined you the same way he ruined everyone else that he pulled into his life. You think he was better just because he wasn’t holding a whip? That he didn’t know what they did to you, that he didn’t fucking pay for it?! Are you that fucking stupid?!”

That did it. Delta was already on the ground midway through the rant, kneeling, the way he did whenever people raised their voice around him. His eyes were down, bowing his head to keep his expression from view. But his knuckles were turning white from just. how tightly his fists were balled up.

“God fucking damn it,” Paris yelled, banging his side of his fist into the door in frustration. Delta flinched. At the same instant, Sabina appeared by the stairs.

“Paris,” she said his name in low warning tone.

“No, what the fuck is he doing? Why-“ Paris gestured, then cut himself off. He ran one hand through his hair, about ready to tear it out. He knew he was about to cry.

“I told him he could,” Sabina explained, slowly. Irate. “God knows you don’t want any of it. How dare you start yelling at him like that?”

She was mad at him. He hated it when she got mad at him; he couldn’t stand it. He slipped past her, jogging down the stairs before either of them could see the tears forming in his eyes. Sabrina stayed there on the top step. He didn’t see Delta, but he could guess he was still kneeling there, that he’d stay until she  gave him permission to get up. 

~

“You can’t snap like that again,” Sabina warned him from the other side of the kitchen.

Paris leaned back against the counter, arms crossed over. He rocked himself gently off the edge.

“Why? Constantine was a fucking dog. I thought we agreed to burn all his shit,” he grumbled.

“You couldn’t burn all that he owned if you had the rest of your life to do it.” She promised. But her eyes had lit up when she said the word burn. She shook her head. “Enough. Don’t take it out on the baby. It’s not his fault.”

“Is he stupid?” Paris asked again. “Doesn’t he know?”

Sabina sighed. She opened the fridge, pouring herself a glass of wine. She was overly focused on the mechanics of it. She rolled her shoulder to undo some of the tension that was forming there.

“Your father is dead, Paris. Isn’t that enough for you? It’s not enough that the both of us hated him, and that he died violent and alone? You also need everyone else to despise him just as much as you do?”

“I do.” Paris said plainly. “Don’t you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Do you know what all my anger got me, in the end? Do you know what would have happened if I’d kept feeding it?”

He didn’t answer. His mother crossed the kitchen to him, tilting her head to one side. He had half a second to glare at her, but it fell flat on the attempt. Sabina was unfazed. She said:

“I would’ve killed you in the cradle.”

Paris shifted back, pulling his arms tighter around himself. He hated when she got like this — all intensity, like she could hold up all four decades of her life on the edge of her fingers. Time flattened into a blade when she wielded it.

“Mom…” he pleaded. He worried she would twist the knife. She could have. He was fragile then.

But she seemed to realize she was pushing too far. Gently, she cupped the side of his face. He leaned into the touch, not caring that her eyes were still sharp. 

“Don’t get cruel,” she said.

Paris withered beneath the gaze, nodding his agreement.

~

Paris looking all over the castle for him. As he stumbled from room to empty room, his dread grew as he realized where he would find him.

He turned the handle of the basement stairs, tracing slowly down to the lower level. To his surprise, Simon was right in the middle of leaving. The scientist shot him a dirty look as he passed, which Paris refused to even dignify. As if he was any better.

In the center of the large basement, the interior bedroom still stood upright. The lock was off of the enclosure now and they’d given Delta a bedroom in the upstairs. But half of his belongings were still in the cage that had been constructed for him.

Paris knocked at the door.

“Yes?” Delta called at the first knock.

“Can you come out?” 

He knew the door was likely unlocked, but he had never stepped into Delta’s room before. To do so now felt like too much of an intrusion.

Almost immediately after the request, the door opened. Delta hovered in the entrance way. He’d taken the jacket off. 

“I had permission,” Delta protested weakly. He knew there was nothing he could really do to defend himself, in the end. The resignation was obvious in his voice.

“You’re not in trouble.” Paris promised, raising his hands slightly in mock surrender.

He didn’t expect it to do anything. But almost imperceptibly, the muscles of Delta’s shoulders relaxed.

~

In the garden, well into the night, Paris wove flowers in between his hands. 

“Do you want it?” He held the crown up to Delta.

“Yes, please.”

Delta placed the daffodils gently onto his head, careful not to disrupt their arrangement.

“Can you teach me how to make those?” he asked.

“Mhm,” Paris agreed. After a few seconds of working himself up to it, he followed: “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

Delta seemed caught off-guard by this, like he didn’t know what the term meant. Even though he said it at every provocation. It was quiet after that. That was fine. His mom said he had to apologize, never said he had to he forgiven.

“I know he didn’t love me,” Delta said. “I’m not…trying to contradict you. I know he didn’t love me. That’s not what it was.”

The both of them stared out onto the lake. The water reflected starlight off the surface. Even late into the night, the grass was still warm with the midday sun.

“But I do miss him,” Delta admitted. 

Paris nodded, afraid to do anything else. He couldn’t agree. But he understood. Delta continued.

“Thank you for letting me stay here. I know you don’t like it. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you.”

“What?” Paris winced as he sat up. “It’s not difficult. What are you talking about?”

Delta recoiled a bit, like he’d overstepped. He kind of had. Paris rarely heard him speak so much at one time, let alone like this.

“I know you didn’t want me here.” He drew his legs closer in on himself. He was bracing himself now, definitely, still expecting to be hit. But he kept talking. “When I first arrived. You or y- Her Majesty. Thank you for letting me stay anyway.”

Oh. Paris felt the guilt well up inside him. He was right, obviously. They didn’t want him there. Of course they hadn’t been receptive to the Emperor bringing home a child in chains, to his building him a prison within their basement. 

He hadn’t realized Delta had picked up on the hostility. The thought never even occurred to him. He really hadn’t been thinking about Delta at all.

“You were a kid,” Paris said quickly. “That wasn’t- Nobody blamed you. You get that, right? We weren’t mad at you.”

Delta ran one claw around the daffodil petals, feeling their shape. He swallowed, “I was scared.”

Paris sat with that for a second, returning his gaze to the water where it was easier to look. He recalled the day’s incident, feeling much worse for it.

“You can take what you want from his room,” Paris amended. “Honestly, he’d probably want you to have it.” 

Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the bitter edge from his voice. Why was it only ever about what Constantine wanted? Why was there never room for anything else?

“I’m sorry, Paris.” Delta said quietly.

Paris blinked in surprise.

“It’s not your fault,” he replied automatically, trying again to reassure him. “I’m not mad at you.”

“I know.” Delta agreed. “But I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

The grief was worst at night. He ran his hands through the grass, feeling his throat tighten.

“…Me too.”

~~~

tags:

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @floral-comet-whump @littlebookworm69

@lordcatwich @human-123-person @paperprinxe @whomeidontknowthem @chiswhumpcorner

@bacillusinfection @ichortwine @whump-queen @lumpywhump

@jumpywhumpywriter @whump-till-ya-jump

[simply-ellas-stuff]

Someone commented on one of my posts that Alicent not comforting aegon was because she had him at 15.

Strained relationship, yes. Unable to connect and bond with him, yes. Awkward as fuck around him, yes.

However.

It is basic human empathy and sympathy to comfort someone crying hysterically in their bedroom after the death of their child. You hug them, you apologize, you put a hand on their shoulder.

It doesn't matter that it was Aegon. Or Helaena for that matter. A father's son was just murdered. And Alicent leaves him alone to sob hysterically. A mother just had to choose between her son and daughter and *saw* and *listened* to her sons head be cut off. And Alicent tries to talk to her about being caught having sex with Cole.

Regardless of circumstances. Someone as pious and emotional as Alicent should have been able to comfort both Aegon and Helaena in that moment.

And, to apologize to Helaena for her being forced to join in parading her dead son outside surrounded by strangers that clearly made Helaena wildly uncomfortable.

Her concern regarding getting caught with criston when speaking to Helaena, who looks like she hasn't slept in days after having to choose which child would die, and her ability to just walk away from aegon, who is sobbing hysterically, shows there is something else going on with Alicent.

Either her own catholic guilt regarding Jaehaerys not having a guard because she was having sex with with the guard, bad writing, or Alicent just completely disassociating her children until they are nothing more than pawns as a way to Cope. She does not see them as people. She does not see them as people to comfort.

Dyana, a stranger raped by Aegon, saw more comfort from Alicent than Aegon or Helaena did this episode. Aemond, when he lost an eye, saw more comfort from Alicent than Aegon or Helaena did this episode.

Regardless of reasons, I think we can all agree that it was cruel of her to walk away from Aegon while he's sobbing into his hands and it was wildly inappropriate to bring up what Helaena saw while Helaena is actively grieving her son in his bedroom and holding his funeral shroud.

[borntogayz]

I’m fully supportive of drivers talking about their mental health and that includes Lando!!! but remember that Lewis and Max have also spoken out with their struggles… Lando is not doing anything revolutionary or singular.

Many of the drivers have talked about their nerves, mental health, eating disorders, etc but just because it wasn’t in a presser or a video’d interview doesn’t mean they never spoke out. Marks book! Maxs’ documentary/show!

I’d love for formula 1 to give these drivers a better and more supportive platform to speak out on these issues but for the most part the opinions and personal issues of drivers are mainly shared in their own content. It’s good that lando is outward with his struggles but at the same time let’s remember that other drivers also face the same or similar challenges.

[furiousgoldfish]

abusive parents: in the 'real' world--

me: ah yes, because your house where you force children into submission is an imaginary land, devoid of reality, a fantasy place where nobody has experienced an actual real-life event, and you yourself have transported this place out of reality only for me to be able to experience this imaginary world where you are the god and decide whats real and what isn't, as well as what past events can be revisioned to your liking. Which one of us isn't living in the real world again.

[stackofstories]

as a kid i don’t think i really understood the gravity of PJO being about kids. stripping down all the supernatural stuff, it’s so easy to see that the kids are surviving and responding to their environment. As an adult, I think about Ares’s kids being so angry and bloodthirsty and so mean and you can blame domineering rage filled Dad for that one. I think about Athena’s kids where nothing is ever good enough for their perfectionist mother so of course they overcompensate, they are a know it alls, they can’t tolerate failure, how rigid and fixed they are in perspective. I think about Hephaestus’s kids and good they are with their hands, how witty and defensive they are, how shy they are with compliments, how they let their work speak for them because everyone calls their father ugly, a mistake, a laughingstock. I think about Aphrodite’s kids and their feigned incompetence when it comes to battles and logic, how they choose partners based on adoration, how they trade secrets on looking the best, how they struggle to say no because Mom says love is enough and you’ll only matter if everyone thinks you’re pretty. I could go on… idk, I just think all these kids deserve a break because they’re doing their best and moving forward in the world the best way they know how.

[inarmes]

☕️ katniss’s parents

katniss was horrible towards her mother until she was put into a situation where she'd be forced to empathize with her. it is absolutely unforgivable to me for her to have swore at her incessantly when she was treating gale (in which katniss did nothing to help wih if not predominantly making it about herself/which i understand because she was also injured,) but she held no understanding of her mother's grief until it again, hit her, and just about a decent amount of understanding of her job and what she'd go through as the town apothecary. katniss did admire her mother's skills and her ability to be hands on, but a lot of the time she would undermine her instead of appreciate the parts of her she did have left.

when it came to katniss’ father, i believe she saw him through rose-colored glasses. a hunter, a good singer, a miner — the first man in her life. but i feel like she gave more credit to him than her mother who had a wider and more impactful job in terms of district care. her father is the dead one, and despite her mother living (and being in a state of deep widowing,) it's almost like they've both died in a way. only she chooses to favor one.

but when mrs. everdeen is doing her job as a healer and a mother, katniss is still indifferent. nothing will bring back her years of childhood lost from becoming the family breadwinner, but nothing will change the fact that her father died. and nothing could change the fact that her mother grieved. nothing will change the fact that things went the way they did, but no one was at fault for what happened. which includes mrs. everdeen, even if she didn't cope in a way that was healthy for her children.

[palatinewolfsblog]

'"Keep me away from the wisdom

which does not cry,

the philosophy

which does not laugh

and the greatness

which does not bow before children."

Khalil Gibran.

[televisionforwhales]

One thing (of many) that drives me crazy about this very popular type of posting is that ppl deliver it like they're getting a snarky victory over an adult, when it's actually aimed at a child. Like, yeah, the adult may be saying it in the present, but who lived it? Who do you think went to school???