Role of Mother’s Education in Developing Children’s Empathy

Abstract

We learn an abundance of skills during our first few years of life – our mothers play a vital role in having a major influence on our personality formations, skill sets, and the nature of goals. Whereas an educated mother helps her child to form views regarding the world, far broadened and contemporary as compared to children of uneducated mothers. As a child is treated with continuous high-quality caregiving, and raised in a pro-social positive environment, he or she develops a basic understanding of the incumbent benefits of developing empathy towards family, friends, and others. This research article seeks to establish the relationship between a mother’s education and children’s empathy level. The study was limited to two public schools in Lahore (N=384), Class 6 and 7 only. A quasi-experimental study was carried out and established a relationship between a mother’s education and the development of empathy in children. The impetus for research is the plethora of everyday incidents taking place in our homeland, Pakistan whereby empathic skill at the root level seems invisible in the personalities of violent perpetrators and criminals. This vagrant evil may not sustain into the following decades, if we may acclimate young children to have personalities that are innately generous, kind, and empathic, thus moving towards building a caring society. Long-term implications of this research are aimed at developing a national empathy program for schools, and parent-child workshops, whereby fostering empathy and kindness in upcoming generations for the betterment of our society and country.