DOES ANYONE CARE ANY MORE?

Well, the Danes do! The Danes care – they care about each other and consider it important enough to devote classroom time to teaching their kids how to care too (in Denmark is teaching its younger generation true empathy in the most wonderful way, in Upworthy, 3 Feb 24), and author Kajol Shah attributes the continuing top-ranking of Denmark as the happiest country in the world, at least in part, to the fact that Danish schools prioritise class time for teaching their children and young people the importance of empathy. Empathy is one of the emotions critical to leading a happy life, and the Danish understand that way too well, Shah claims. The people of Denmark understand the vital importance of?empathy and that's why it has been compulsory to teach kids about empathy in schools since 1993, Shah explains.

For Shah, empathy is an interpersonal skill which is critical to leading a holistically healthy life. In layman's language, it is the ability to understand and be responsive to the feelings of another person. Moreover, while empathy is a personal quality not everyone can instil in themselves, everyone must have it to lead a?happy, fulfilling, satisfying life.

The Danes used to rank as the happiest country in the world up until 2016 before Finland pushed them to second place, Shah points out, noting that Denmark is undoubtedly still one of the happiest countries in the world. According to?Denmark's official website, happiness has always been linked closely with the strong community spirit and social equality Danes demonstrate, Shah reports.

Furthermore, Shah asserts that both of these qualities – community spirit and social equality - are nurtured and driven by individual empathy, that indispensable willingness to be aware of, attentive to and above all, to show that you care about how another person is feeling. Empathy pushes the Danish to do better for the overall development of everyone, Shah asserts.

Teaching children the importance of empathy – a consistent awareness and outward-facing care for other people – teaches them crucial life skills and truths. From a young age, children learn that as you deal with people - of whatever age - and encounter their different moods and behaviours day by day, that you can never know what is going on in another person’s life. Being instinctively aware of the way they are, how they seem to be feeling, enables you to respond to them in a sensitive, caring way that offers them both acceptance of who they are and of their present mood and also the care that your personal interest in and support for them which your empathy shows.

A crucial example of collective empathy showcased in Denmark, Shah affirms, is that people are happy to pay high taxes, going on to suggest that that is because they believe it to be the responsibility of everyone who can work to be their productive, contributing best to make things easier and better for the very young, very old, very sick or disabled.

Columbia University professor and co-creator of the Jeff Sachs, told CNBC Makeit that when researchers talk about 'happiness,' they’re referring to 'satisfaction with the way one’s life is going.' But despite empathy being such a crucial emotion for happiness, Shah observes, a study of 14000 students by the University of Michigan found that the students of today have 40% less empathy as compared to the students back in the 1980s and 1990s.

But why should we be surprised? Students in the 1980s and 1990s were not wedded to their mobile phones nor ensnared in their devices. They were not obsessed with taking selfies in exotic locations or celebrating their menial achievements and self-centred little lives on so-called ‘social’ media. Lives centred on self are diminished and inward-looking. Small wonder that the so-called digital natives are less empathetic than their parents and grandparents!

And that is why Danish schools strictly have an hour each week dedicated to teaching kids about empathy, Shah emphasises. According to the Danes, he continues, empathy is not as much an inherent trait as much as it is a learned skill. Just like Maths or football, the more empathy you demonstrate, the more empathetic you become.

In these weekly one-hour "Klassens tid" or class time dedicated to empathy, Shah explains, kids openly talk about their feelings and their problems with the whole class. These problems may or may not be related to school. However, the whole class, including the teacher, brainstorms together to come up with a solution using real-time active listening and empathetic understanding, thereby developing and demonstrating interpersonal skills they have been taught. If no particular problems or issues are aired by members of the class, ??the kids simply practice hygge. Hygge is a term closely associated with the Danish culture, Shah enlightens, adding that in a country that sees the light of the day for very few hours a day, hygge refers to cultivating a feeling of warmth, light and contentment that is brought about by induced intimacy.

Teaching empathy cannot work if empathy is the sole focus, of course. Classes also teach kids other aspects of emotional maturity, like kindness and gratitude. In Danish culture, competition is strictly off-limits, Shah points out, going on to indicate that the only competition one has is with oneself. According to Shah, this allows children to focus on where they need to improve, rather than focusing on whom they need to outshine. The Danes also tend to pair up kids with different strengths and weaknesses to teach the kids two things, Shah concludes; the first thing is helping others always leads to better results, and the second thing is that ?success cannot be achieved alone.

In today’s Australian schools, where so many of our children and young people are anxious, despondent, alienated and even depressed, might specialist well-being teachers and even everyday form-room teachers and classroom teachers too be encouraged and equipped to foster and nurture empathy in their young people? Finding purpose for one’s self often stems from offering meaning and a sense of worth to another by caring about them.

A Lesson from Elmo

Perhaps all schools, with students of all ages, could start their nurturing of empathy and caring within their student community by encouraging their children and young people to ask one another Elmo’s question – which went viral on X a week ago (in Justin Bariso, Elmo’s nine-word tweet just set the internet on fire! It’s a powerful lesson in Emotional Intelligence, in Inc, 1 Feb 24).

Elmo asked,

“Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?”

Bariso notes that in less than 48 hours, the post had received over 12,000 replies, over 100,000 likes, and had been reposted over 46,000 times. On February 1, “Elmo” was the number-one trending topic in the U.S. on X (Twitter), with over 338,000 posts.

“Wow! Elmo is glad he asked!” responded the “Elmo” account yesterday. “Elmo learned it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.” Bariso reports.On the surface, a question like this coming from Elmo – or, more accurately, the Sesame Workshop social media team–may seem silly, superficial even, he continues, but when we look a bit deeper, we see that Elmo’s question teaches a powerful lesson - both in empathy in particular and also in Emotional Intelligence more broadly - and that is the importance in humans of the ability to understand and manage emotions.

But how come Elmo’s question proved so powerful? And what lessons can leaders glean from it? Bariso asks.

The power of “How are you?”

Bariso reminds us that “How are you?” is a simple question. The problem is, though, that most of the time, we use it in conventional conversation. Often, Bariso suggests, it’s simply used as a greeting, with no real expectation of hearing an honest answer.

But in reality, Bariso says, people are actually craving to be asked this question sincerely. When we ask people how they are, they really want to tell us! They hope you are asking out of a genuine sense of care for them – which perhaps in more polite, caring, other-centred days – we used to ask the question sincerely, and were prepared to listen to the answer!

Research backs this up, Bariso asks. For example, Gallup found that their employees and team members at work valued communication from their leaders and managers which showed genuine and authentic interest in what happened in their lives outside at work. But the company’s most recent employee engagement survey says this is still a dire need, as employees are “less likely to feel someone at work cares about them as a person,” compared with four years ago.

Harvard Business review researched financial services company EY and found that more than 40% of U.S. respondents reported feeling physically and emotionally isolated in the workplace. The problem spanned across generations, genders, and ethnicities.

Bariso, whose work includes training and enhancing people’s Emotional Intelligence, ?indicates that there’s another reason people are craving to answer the question How are you?

He goes on to outline how he has used this question in the past two years in a unique way: inviting people signing up for his emotional intelligence courses?to tell him how they are. People openly share specific details about their lives and current situation, Bariso says. He responds to each one to build the connection between his readers and himself, as well as helping him better to support them through his work, by sharing how emotional intelligence and its various dimensions – including empathy - help them to deal with their specific problems at work. ?

If you’re a leader in your organisation, how can you help your people to feel valued, appreciated and cared about at work?

Quite literally, Bariso suggests how you can help best is by doing what Elmo did. Reach out to members of your team by saying:

“Just checking in. How are you?”

And how easy would it be, and how well would it work, if you adopted this in your school as well? What if teachers were encouraged to ask each other, How are you? How are you doing? as they rush past each other in the corridor or staff room – pausing long enough to listen to the reply? Often, Bariso says, you don’t have to say much at all in reply. It’s the sincere personal interest – and the listening – that matters most.

Then how good would it be if the children and young people shared a school culture in which Elmo’s question became standard, normal – part of the way your kids do things around your school? How great would it be as a way to start growing hygge – that wonderful feeling of warmth, lightness and contentment that the Danes so cherish – as well as to grow empathy among all the students in your school, if your children and young people routinely but sincerely asked each other How are you? – and paused long enough to listen - to actively listen – to the reply?

So, if you want to make people feel valued at your workplace, especially in your school - take a lesson from Elmo:

Check in regularly. Ask them how they’re doing. Listen carefully.

And encourage all of them – the five-year-olds, the fifteen-year-olds, the fifty-five year-olds and everyone in between – to do the same.

From nobody caring, you would create a school culture where everyone was caring.

If you do, you’ll build deeper, stronger connections, you would give people exactly what they’re craving, and you would enable them all truly to flourish!

?

?

?

?

?