Episode 115 Why Empathy is a Super Power with Dr. Michele Borba

Zoe Blaskey: Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Motherkind Podcast with me, your host, Zoe Blaskey, where each week I chat about all things motherhood and well-being. My mission with this podcast is to help you reconnect to you to feel happier, more joyful, calmer and a little bit kinder to yourself. Because I think life as a mum in this hectic modern world is hard enough as it is. I believe becoming the happiest, most alive version of ourselves is the most important and inspiring thing we can do for our children.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Motherkind Podcast. I hope you are really well. This episode is a sponsored episode, which means it's been created in association with Barbie. So that means I have been paid to create this episode in partnership with Barbie. And the reason that I'm super excited to be bringing this episode today and to be partnering with Barbie was because we're going to be discussing empathy. So Barbie and neuroscientists from Cardiff University have collaborated on a new study, which, for the first time ever, uses neuroimaging to explore the effects of doll play. And guess what? It showed that playing with dolls allows children of all genders to develop empathy and social processing skills.

So this episode is with Dr. Michele Borba, who is a world-renowned parenting expert. She is the author of 22 books and is called 'America's Most Trusted Parenting Expert'. Dr. Michele is an expert in empathy, and she has a new book out called UnSelfie, which explains the ten steps to developing empathy and children.

So in this episode, we unpack why empathy is a super power, why it's on the decline, and how to nurture it in children. I hope you really enjoyed the episode. As ever, please do share, rate, review, and get in touch with me, and let me know what you thought of the episode. Here it is.

Zoe: Dr. Michele, welcome to the Motherkind Podcast. I'm super, super, super honoured to be chatting to you. Well, it's your lunchtime because you're in L.A., and it's my evening. It's quite late here. It's actually halfway in the evening. So we're on different time zones, but I'm really excited to be connecting.

Dr. Michele: Me too. It's absolutely an honour. And this is the perfect time because every parent wants to know: ‘how can we help our kids’? So thank you for the opportunity.

Zoe: So this is a sponsored episode for Motherkind, which I'm so excited to be talking about because Barbie have commissioned this incredible first of its kind study, which we're going to be

talking about some detail later on, all about empathy, and you are a leading empathy expert. Your book, UnSelfie, I read it today. It's absolutely fantastic, and the introduction just got me straight away. So you said you've written 22 books on parenting. I read somewhere you are 'America's Most Trusted Parenting Expert'. And when you are asked what makes a child happy and successful, you always give the same answer, don't you? What is that answer that you give?

Dr. Michele: Oh, thank you for asking because I think it's called empathy. And empathy is this absolutely phenomenal human trait—our kids are hardwired for it. It is the ability to feel with another human being, to share those feelings. What we now know is that empathy actually activates our kids' compassion, their caring, and giving as opposed to getting. It makes our children happier, more successful, academically better performers. We just need to reframe it, so we don't think of empathy as soft and fluffy. I think it's absolutely transformational.

Zoe: Yeah. And that's something that I love deep diving to in your work is the importance of empathy, and you call it the empathy advantage. What is the empathy advantage? Why is it so important that children and ourselves model empathy?

Dr. Michele: Well, what I discovered when I was writing UnSelfie, I spent a long time just looking at this phenomenal scientific research, and it just kept coming up over and over in studies that empathy was really the seeds for predicting our children to have better mental health—who doesn't want that—to be happier children but also the ability to bounce back, that resilient ability, where you can handle the adversity. Our kids are all going to have the adversity, but to be able to be the kid who bounces back and keeps on going, is what we're really looking for.

And besides that, we also know it's one of the best antidotes we have to prevent bullying and racism and the big divide. Children who are more empathetic are actually popular kids because they're kids who don't get into the big complexes readily. Instead, they start to try to understand where the other person is coming from, and that's what their friends are looking for as well. There's just enormous amount of power to empathy, I mean, let me count the ways of how incredibly important it is. But I think the first thing we need to know is that our children are hardwired for it, and it can be cultivated. That alone, I think, it's reassuring to parents.

Zoe: I think this is what's absolutely fascinating about empathy and your study of it is that whilst children are hardwired to it, it's not an innate skill, and I was really surprised to learn that. Can you unpack that a bit? Why is this not an innate skill? And therefore, I guess if parents don't model it or teach it, it never gets developed? Is that right?

Dr. Michele: That's right on the mark. The most startling statistic I discovered when I was researching empathy is besides the fact that our kids arrived hardwired to care unless we nurture it—intentionally nurture it—it lies dormant. And there goes the problem.

We've been watching American teens as they go into college, seeing a huge dip. In fact, empathy has gone down 40% in the last 30 years, while narcissism has gone up 58%. Researchers are very concerned.

Zoe: So fascinating. Why do you think that is? Are we going to blame smartphones? Are we blaming in the way that our communities are set up now? You know, we live in far more isolated lives. What's your feeling on this? You call it the ‘selfie syndrome’, and I love that phrase.

Dr. Michele: Well, first of all, I call it the 'selfie syndrome' because empathy is 'we', not 'me'. But we're finding is that narcissism or self-absorption has gone up 58%, so kids are more concerned about 'myself' as opposed to others. The $50,000 question is, 'So why is it going down'? and we are so quick to want to blame the smartphone. Now that's one dimension to it. Because we have discovered that the longer our kids look down at a digital device, as opposed to looking up at a human face, their emotional literacy or the ability to read, 'How you feeling, mum? How are you doing, dad'? starts to go down, and therefore the gateway to empathy goes.

But it's also—you alluded to it—a combination of factors. We are more isolated in our communities, we are far more concerned about our kids' grades and their test scores. They come home, and our first question very often is, 'What did you get'? as opposed to 'How kind were you today'? And so that is resonating to our kids. In fact, teens, when we asked them, 'What's the most important thing that your parents want for you'? they all said, 'To get the good grade'. That's a big concern.

Lots of other factors combined is that play has been removed, even sandbox. That's the first vehicle where our kids learn 'It's my turn. Now, it's your turn', just regular role play activates empathy. Kids aren't reading for pleasure nearly enough. There's another factor. We've discovered that children who read just good old fun. Those kids who are reading literary fiction are more likely to be able to get into the shoes of the character. So, therefore, they're more likely to get in the shoes of their brother or sister, their mom or dad, or their aunt and uncle.

There's so many different reasons for it, but the bottom line is, don't wave the white flag and say you can't do anything about it. Yes, we can. We just need to add it to our parenting because this is the dimension that is really going to help our kids be able to thrive both now and later.

Zoe: That's beautiful, and I think kindness is so important to me. I've got a nearly five-year-old and a nine-month-old.

Dr. Michele: Aww.

Zoe: And I gave myself an empathy parenting pat-on-the-back the other day because we were driving to school, and someone ran across when it was a green light, a pedestrian, and I said, 'Silly lady'. And Jessie, who's nearly five, said, 'Mummy, think about it. Maybe she was running really late for something', and I thought...

Dr. Michele: Oh. Did you write that down in your journal? Those are the moments that you want to stand up when he graduates and say, 'Let me tell you about the best moment when you were five'. All those moments that go by so quickly. And they're so precious because they're telling about our children's character—and that's what it's all about.

The other thing that's so absolutely mind-bogglingly wonderful is that the research is saying that we're putting and making this stuff be too hard. It's simple. The first way to really make sure that your children are empathetic is model it yourself. If you were to say, 'What's another reason why empathy is going down'? Adults are really kind of in the hall of shame these days on what they're modelling and what our kids are looking up to and what they're seeing. So tune it up in yourself. Ask grandma and grandpa. Tune it up. I'm sure they're already there for you. But anybody who's a close personal friend, what our children see is what they copy—our voice, what we praise. So often, we praise the, what you get.

But how glorious the research says if we tune on every once in a while, and say, ‘Oh, thank you for being so kind’, ‘Oh, that was so kind when you’... and then take a moment to say what it was. ‘You stopped and asked Grandma how was her day’, or ‘you waited to make sure that grandpa was seated before you started in on your dinner’. ‘Did you notice how their faces were lit up with happiness because of you’?

When we let our kids know that kindness matters, and then we reinforce it, what happens is that they also develop a kindness mindset. Fascinating is you act how you see yourself to be. That's why when I looked at the research that was Barbie was coming out, I was just overcome with, ‘Oh, yay’. What they prove to us is that just simple play, play with dolls—whether you're playing by yourself with a doll, or whether you're playing with another friend with the doll, or whether you're playing with mummy and daddy with a doll—actually activate empathy.

The research was showing that the part of their brain right behind your ears, where compassion is, lights up. And the reason for it is that children make sense of their world through play. They're doing exactly what you were describing of ‘Mummy, maybe he's had a bad day. That's why that driver did that’. Well, they do the same thing with dolls, and that's why we can also tune in and figure out what level developmentally our children are at by empathy or what kind of a day they had just by eavesdropping or playing with them.

Zoe: I agree with you. It's just so exciting because this study is the first of its kind. The neuroimaging that they've done has never been done before, has it? So it's really kind of new news, actually, that we have this kind of science now that shows that encouraging our children to play in this way with dolls can really, as you say, light up this part of the brain.

Do we have to set up the play for our children? Like, would you be saying, you know, ‘Here's this little doll? Are they going to care for this little doll? Or, Is this one sick?’ Or will children just innately develop that muscle through playing with dolls? How much do we have to direct the play as the parent?

Dr. Michele: As a mother of three, I'd say it depends upon the kid. It's fascinating because so often, what happens is children play by replicating what they've just seen. So it could be that they've just gone to the day care worker, or they've just come back from school, and they're going to re-enact what happened out on the playground or even what the teacher said to them. That's the first thing is you can really kind of get an idea of how their day was.

But the second thing that you can also do is certainly prime them by playing with them. You can sit down and say, you know, 'Skipper, oh. Gosh, Skipper's had a bad day. How would your face look if Skipper had a bad day'? 'Yeah, her friend didn't call her to give her', 'Can you come to my house today'? 'What do you think that she should do? How should she act that through'?

And you can help your child learn to come up with some coping skills. 'Yeah, she could go listen to music', 'Yes, she could go tell her mommy', 'Yes, she could go pick up a book and just look at the pictures to make herself better', or 'She could call her friend, you're right. She could call her friend and say, 'Would you like to come to play with my house'?

There's so many opportunities because that roleplaying scenario is one of the best ways to help our children learn that social information processing skills, and that's exactly what the research was coming out and showing. That's what happens when kids have that moment to just play informally. You certainly can play with them.

Zoe: And I think what was so brilliantly timed, actually, was that given where we are in the world.

Dr. Michele: Yeah.

Zoe: Around lockdown and isolation and less playdates—you know, my five-year-old hasn't had a playdate for a while—is that the impact of doll play on developing empathy is just as effective if they're playing on their own. And I think that is such a powerful message as well because empathy to me is all about others. And in fact, it's fascinating. That’s a kind of paradox that, actually, you can develop it through solo play with dolls. You know, the doll becomes the ‘other’, doesn't it?

Dr. Michele: Exactly. Oh, I love that you said that. The other thing that it does—play—let's look at the reality, how many parents are at home, trying to conduct their own work at home where they now have their children? You can alleviate some of that thing called guilt that we're so good at, by just handing your child a doll, and realising that that moment is going to be helping that child enormously on coping, developing self-regulation, developing the ability to step into the shoes of someone else, while you can also eavesdrop and figure out a window into your child's world.

And here's another thing, if you take those dolls, and also divvy them up by making sure that your child has diversity in dolls—for instance, they found the same thing regardless if it was a boy playing or a girl playing with the dolls, so mix them up. So the girl is playing with the boy doll, the boy is playing with the girl doll, or mix the races. What we discovered is that, ‘Not only can Barbie be white like you and your colour skin, but also a different colour just like your friend who lives across the street’. What you're helping is your child feel comfortable with diversity.

Handicaps—dolls who are now in wheelchairs can be wonderful for a child to be able to first feel comfortable with that child in a wheelchair so you can go out and say, ‘He's just like me’. And that's what we're looking for, children who can say, ‘He's just like me’, who are comfortable with all kinds of differences because the world is all kinds of differences.

Zoe: Yeah, that's so beautiful. That's something I'm trying to nurture in Jessie through play as well is just seeing the humanity in everyone behind, as you say—body shape, body size, colour, disability, not disability. And I think, 'Gosh, if she can go into the world being able to see the humanness in everyone, she will be a beautiful soul in the world', because not everyone is taught to do that, are they?

Dr. Michele: Yeah, I would like you to put that on a billboard. That's exactly what we want—to raise beautiful souls. Listen, our children also come from a very early place when we're dealing with them as little critters, and that is, they're open to differences. They don't see that he's different, or she's a different ability, or that's a different gender. And children are, at one age, going to be able to come up to us and say, 'You know, he's different’. And there's our golden opportunity to say, 'Yes, he does go to a different church,' or 'Yes, he does play on a different kind of team,' or 'Yes, she does read a different kind of book, so let's go find out what you have in common’. Because the more our children begin to see, 'Well, yeah, he does have only one mum, and you have two,' or, 'He has a mum and a dad,' or, 'He has five sisters, and you have one brother. Let's go find out how you're the same’.

The more we come up with the sameness and the commonality, the more their hearts open because we also know this is a wake-up call for the adults. We're more likely to empathise with those like us—our gender, our income, our country. What we want to do is just break up that so we are empathising with all people, and that takes a little work, but that's doable, says the science.

Zoe: That’s so beautiful. But I just love how you're focusing. The thing that really got me thinking is this focus on grades because I get that, how well-meaning that is that we want our children to be successful. And yet, what your book talks about and presents a brilliant case for is that, actually, empathy is a far more important factor for future success, whatever that looks like than grades. And doesn't that make sense? The most successful people that I know are 'people- people'. They are incredible at working with people. They can bring teams with them. They're leaders; they're not the people who are book-smart.

Dr. Michele: Well, the other thing about those people is actually 'people-people' live longer. You want a healthier child, statistically, if you're a person who is that people connector, you're far more likely to live a longer, healthier life. Now, that doesn't mean that we want to say, 'Okay, grades don't matter, and school doesn't matter', but I think it's not an either/or. 'It's either grades or kindness'—both matter.

And both can be simply woven in because the best part of that empathy-building, it doesn't take a PhD for a parent or another fancy program, another fancy app. It's just simple ways that we say, 'It is important. This is what I want for my child. So that 40 years from now, I'm at the next family reunion, I'm eavesdropping on my kid, he's not going to be sitting the whole time talking about test scores. He's also going to be saying mummy and daddy wanted me to be a kind human being'. That's what's going to make the world a better place.

Zoe: So beautiful. And you've got three grown-up sons. How did you get this right with them? Are they empathetic? And how did you know? When you had thought, 'You know what? I've got three empathetic kids there'. Tell us about your personal experience with developing this quality.

Dr. Michele: My kids are wonderful. I have three sons. And I have a two-year-old grandson. So how wonderful is all of that? But when I look back about it, is I knew that I wanted to be kind. I certainly wanted them to be successful in school, but we spent a lot of time reading and talking about just natural kindness, and 'What did you do today that was nice'. And as a result, I think that really embedded into them.

The other day, when I know that I went, 'Okay, I did fine', we had kind of a bad experience. I'm in California, where fires are just huge as a problem, and then to top it off all, my house was robbed last week. First ones to my doorstep, they drove two hours each way with camera recorders. They reinstated all of the security system. They were so concerned about me, and 'How you doing, mum and dad? What do we need to do for you'? that it was my moment, 'Okay, pat yourself on the back. You did something good. Despite everything that was taken that was near and dear, the most valuable things, your kids are standing there saying, 'What can I do for you, mum? We're worried'.

Zoe: One of the things that you talk about is broadening horizons. What are some of the ways that parents can intentionally do that, make sure that our children are seeing a range of different people in the world with different struggles, different backgrounds? How did you do that with your children?

Dr. Michele: Well, first of all, I was lucky in that I was an educational psychologist, and I was reading this research that kept coming out. And so the first thing that's the easy thing is don't start with the kids—start with yourself. Expand your own horizons. Who are the friends you're bringing home? Let your children see that you are open to diversity and how wonderful and accepting you are.

Movies can be a goldmine. Films, let's look at those possibilities, and let's go one step more with that as well. Books—oh, my gosh, books are just a window to the world and opportunities. And so help kids step into different kinds of diversity, making sure that the books you expose your children to all are different kinds of opportunities as well. 'He lives in that country', 'She lives over here', 'He's 5', 'She's 18'. Let's expose them to differences, and those are just a few.

Museums—when they finally open up—most museums right now are actually designed to curate empathy. So that they help kids see the world in a different world when you actually walk through the museum exhibit, and you step into the shoes of different kids from different parts of the world.

Zoe: Such a good point. And how do feelings link with empathy? Because I see a kind of key part of empathy is being able to understand how someone else feels, but as you say in the book, we can only do that when we can connect with our own feelings. This is something we talk about a lot on the podcast, but I know you've got some of your own brilliant ideas around this. So how do

we help our children connect with their own feelings so that then they can connect with the feelings of another?

Dr. Michele: First of all, to reinforce the point you just mentioned, emotional literacy or knowing your emotion ABCs is the gateway to empathy. You can't feel with another person unless you can read your feelings and the other person's feelings. That is extremely simple to teach. And it starts with, at a very young age, our little, little ones, they know four feelings. ‘Are you sad? Are you mad? Are you angry? Are you happy?’ and they mix all those up. So help them. Just talk those feelings over and over again; point them out in context.

As you're dealing with an older kid, you can talk about feelings at that point. As you're reading those books, when Sally gets mad—really, really mad—and your little ones crawling up on your lap, make your face look like Sally. Books that have those beautiful illustrations of different feelings are a goldmine because children can mirror the feeling and mirror your own as well.

And then just talk feelings naturally as they come up, 'Looks like you're upset', 'Looks like you're frustrated'. First of all, that's going to give you a key is, 'Are they really'? because your child is going to be able to admit it or not. But the other thing is realising that majority of our children and us are looking down at a text. Most of our middle school, our 9, 10, 11, and 12-year-old kids admit they're more comfortable texting than talking.

So emotions aren't just looking at a person's face—and most of them right now are covered with masks, right? So there's some other things. You have to also be able to decode voice tone, 'How's this voice feeling'? 'You can do that with grandma'. 'Let's Skype with grandma', or 'Let's FaceTime with grandma, but watch grandma's face. Listen to her voice or watch her body. Is her shoulders starting to slump over'? You prime your child because, 'Now, you'll know whether now it's time that she gets a little tired, and it's time to say goodbye'.

One more thing. This is the research that Guilt 101 is the mum. This was Yale, and they watched us with our two-year-old sons and our two-year-old daughter's behind two-way mirrors. And they discovered we do a far better job talking feelings with our daughters at age two. ‘Oh, you look so sad, sweetheart’, ‘Oh my gosh, how happy you are’, ‘Oh, thank you for telling mummy’, and not so well with our sons. ‘Boys don't cry,’ ‘Your friend won't like you when you do that’.

And so what they discovered, even though it's only at age two, by the time our children go off to school at age four or five, there's already a pink-blue divide in feelings. Boys are far less able to identify feelings only because we haven't nurtured it nearly enough. So the tip: just talk feelings naturally. Point them out. And that's the first key that you'll be able to open up the door to empathy.

Zoe: That is a fascinating study around the feelings that had a similar study actually around money, that at that age, we start to talk differently, inadvertently unconsciously, about money to our boys and girls, which is just absolutely fascinating.

Dr. Michele: Uh-huh.

Zoe: Something I wanted to ask you about, which just popped up in my mind, around watching the feelings of others, is there a point where we have to be mindful of hypervigilance, overriding what we might want by over-empathising? Is that a thing with someone else's feelings? By that I mean, you know, I'm a recovering people pleaser, so I over-empathise with other people's feelings at my own expense. And I'm wondering, how does that intersect with empathy? Is it possible to over-empathise? And how do we kind of know where those boundaries are?

Dr. Michele: I don't think you can have too much empathy, but you can be the one who tries to take it all on, in which case, you're in danger of what's called ‘compassion fatigue’. That's actually what's happening to first responders around the world. They give, give, give, give, give, give, give so much, and they're absolutely at the stressed mount point.

Here's what happens. Because you're so tuned in to looking at everybody else's feelings and emotions—and you'll see this with your children—each of your children shares and shows empathy in a different way. Let's just take a moment because there's three kinds of empathy. Some of our kids have affective empathy, and you'll see when they're over distressed. You watch them play with dolls, and you see they're so upset when Skipper’s upset, and you can just read it off of their face. They come crying because, ‘Brother’s just been hurt’, and they're stealing his pain.

But because some of your kids don't cry, doesn't mean they don't have it. That's the second kind of empathy. That's called cognitive empathy. That's a fabulous, fabulous skill. That means, I'm stepping into the shoes of someone else and try to understand where they're coming from. One of the best ways to answer your question is, when you're too affective of a person in your empathy, you stop the affect, and you just kind of step into the cognitive model. 'I'm starting to get too upset. If I'm not careful, I'm going to be dialling down my empathy. So I'm going to stop and think it through instead'.

The final kind of empathy, as we've just talked about, affective and cognitive, is where we're aiming for, and that is empathy in action. It's compassionate concerns, your empathetic concerns. You see someone being distressed, so you're more likely to step in.

Now, in terms of your kids, how do you teach them those skills? Once again, dolls are the absolute answer. You get out Barbie, and what you're absolutely able to do is roleplay. 'You look like you're so upset', 'Oh, my gosh. Look, look, look at your friend over there. Look at him. What can you say to Ken? Okay, but what are you going to say to yourself'? 'Sorry, Ken. I'm feeling too overwhelmed right now. I need to step back for just a minute'. That's what you can do for an older child, and it'll really help the child learn strategies so that they can cope.

Zoe: Well, that's such a helpful answer. Thank you. Something else I wanted to ask you about, and I know Bernie Brown talks about this a lot too, but I'm fascinated to get your take on it, is the difference between empathy and sympathy. Because they're very different, aren't they? And I think sometimes they can really get confused. Maybe with doll play actually, like that's the sort of thing where you might see some sympathy coming in. So what is sympathy and what is empathy? How are they different?

Dr. Michele: They're very different. Sympathy is feeling for someone. Empathy is feeling with someone. Now, if you think about that, sympathy can be a person that sees, 'Yeah, he's really upset', and walks right on. That is not a person who steps in to do something about it. You can prime your child when you're playing with dolls, again, 'You look like you're really upset. What can you do to make her feel better'?—the other doll, I'm saying. So you're actually priming your child to be able to rehearse different ways you can help a child. 'The doll is crying', or 'The doll just fell and got hurt', or 'The doll—oh, my gosh. Everything that she had in her backpack just fell to the ground. What can you do'?

What you're doing is no longer the sympathy model, you're helping your child learning the empathy model. But many of our kids say, when I interview them, they want to help, but the problem is they don't know how. We need to just give some rehearsal techniques. You can do that just playing the two of you together in real life, or you can certainly play that with teddy bears or dolls, and roleplay different scenarios, so you can give your child the answer.

Zoe: And wouldn’t that be incredible in schools if we could teach our children young, when you see someone in trouble, you help in an appropriate way? I wonder the impacts that that might have on the horrific bullying, cyberbullying? I know you do a lot of work on this, don't you, around schools and bullying?

Dr. Michele: You can't see me nodding up and down, but my head is just going, 'Yes, yes, yes'. Because I am convinced, the best antidote to bullying is empathy. Why? Well, because it's impossible to hurt—intentionally hurt, that's what a bully does—intentionally cause another person pain—if you can empathise with that person.

One of the things that we're also doing at schools—oh, I have an incredible opportunity to fly around the world. In fact, I've worked in Cambridge before with some of your schools, and what we're now realising is that, who we're not helping are the kids. If we can teach them ways to step in and speak out, what we can do is really dramatically stop bullying.

In fact, we've discovered that if a child sees another kid who is intentionally causing another kid pain, and within 30 seconds to a minute, steps in and does something about that, you actually statistically stop the bullying dramatically two-thirds of the time.

Now, in all fairness, let's make sure that we start this earlier because our kids at age five are far better at upstanding—that means stepping in and helping. They've actually watched two little five- year-olds walking with each other, and what they do is they talk it through. 'She doesn't look like she's feeling good. I don't think she was treated fairly. What about you'? 'I know. Well, how you feeling? I'm a little scared to do something'. 'Okay, well, maybe if we do something together'…— because they're talking their feelings together, they're far more likely to step in and help.

And then what you could do at home, oh, my gosh, and goodness, starting at age three, four, and five, don't you cushion it anymore. 'Your friend is hurting? What can you do? Let's go find something we can do'. Until finally, you don't have to say anything if you're dealing with an older child because that's very difficult, to confront another child who's treated another person unfairly,

but instead, you could say, 'That's not nice'. But you can also do something brilliant. You can tell your child, 'Don't walk toward the bully. Walk toward the other kids'. And what you'll do is that you can mobilise them to walk toward the kid who's being targeted or the victim, and what you'll do is draw the power from the bully to the child who is victimised, and it actually stops the bullying as well. UnSelfie in that chapter eight has dozens of ways to build moral courage. But you know, the thing about it is, it starts at age 2, 3, 4, and 5. We're just playing naturally at home.

You play, act these parts out, and your child will be far more courageous to be able to do them in the real world because he's rehearsed and thought it through just at home with those dolls.

Zoe: That’s amazing. If you could see a couple of things in the next couple of generations change using the power of empathy, what would those be?

Dr. Michele: Well, the first thing you would see is leadership. Because, I swear, best leaders are the ones who are concerned about their people and empathetic towards each other. So that's first. But I also think we'd see a change in mental health. What we're seeing across the world right now, your country right, right after Covid when it opened up, when you were seeing a huge spike in depression, and I was tracking you because we were right behind you, what's going to happen. Our kids were so overwhelmed because they social distance—what you're seeing is a change in mental health.

You see, when stress builds, you dial your empathy down, to the point where we're also dealing with this as parents. Your stress continues to build; it continues to build, until finally, what you see is burnout. So maybe at the end of this, if somebody's listening to this and going, 'Oh, my gosh. We need empathy', then don't just feel like you've got to do this by yourself; reach out and find another like-minded parent. Get together on board, get a book club going together, pass on just books towards one another of kids, 'Here was a great book that emotionally charged my child', or pass them on of, 'Hey, get down on the floor with your kid. Play with those Barbies, and help your child learn how to get along'. Any of these techniques—put in just a box by your back door. This is so simple.

Put a box by your back door and call it your family giving box. It's not just a one time; it's an ongoing, that every single time you're done with that gently used book, or you don't want to play that game anymore or maybe that backpack is done, you fill the box up, and every time the box is filled you as a family—this is when Covid is over—are going to take the box together and deliver it to a needy family, deliver it to a church who can give it to a needy family, deliver it to the local fire department who can deliver it. What kids will begin to see is that they're givers.

I interviewed dozens of children when I was writing UnSelfie. The most amazing thing is when an educator would say, 'You've got to go interview that kid or that kid or that teen or that kid', and I'd say, 'Why'? 'Because they're just the epitome of what you're talking about. They're so empathetic'. So I go interview the kid, and my question was always, 'How'd you get that way'? And the commonality of every kid was, 'It was how I was raised'. I'd say, 'Please do tell, how were you raised'? Number one, 'My parents in my house expected me to be kind'. So there's takeaway number one, expect it. Number two, they modelled it. 'Every time I have a memory of my dad, he

was always doing for others'. They were doing kind; they were just expecting it but also modelling it. But the third thing is, 'We always were expected to do good. We were expected to be kind'.

One of the simplest tips that I have is called the ‘2 Kind Rule’. I love it. It's so simple, and it's what these kids were doing. One of my own girlfriends, 35 years ago, has three little ones—toddlers— and she said, 'I'm going to raise them, and they're going to be smart in their schools, but I swear they're also going to be kind kids'. So she came up with what she called the ‘2 Kind Rule’. They brainstorm every night around the dinner hour, 'What are some things you can do that are kind’? And when they're little, they made index cards and they drew them. They actually hung them from a tree with their Giving Tree, just a little branch that was like their centrepiece in the middle of their table.

And then every day, each child would leave their house to go to day care or go to school or whatever. Mum would say, 'Have a good day. Remember the '2 Kind Rule’. You're to say or do at least two kind things to somebody today, and then when you come home, we're going to talk about it’. Every night, they'd always spend just a minute, but that expanded at their dinner hour talking about the kind things that they did. They kept repeating those gestures and then growing with those gestures. Well, they're now grown. They're in their 30s, and I will verify that they are very smart kids. But they’re the three nicest, kindest kids you could possibly imagine and it's because of one rule that their mom said every single day we do until it becomes internalised and embedded in that child.

Zoe: I think what I just love so much about that is, a couple of things that you said—one is the compassion that you showed for the parents right now. Because what I don't want someone to be listening to this and thinking, 'Oh, my god. This is another thing I have to do. Or another thing I'm not doing and to feel guilty about'. And I think you're right. It's so important that we, as parents, look after ourselves first, so that we can do this stuff, as you say, if we're burnt out. And this is really hard. I think you're absolutely right to flag that, that it's looking after ourselves so that we can model these things.

And the other thing that I love is the simplicity of the ‘2 Kind Rule’. And it kind of brings us full circle because we started this conversation talking about the focus on academics and the focus of parents. You know, when the kids got home, saying, 'What grade did you get'? And what kind of struck me is that really, you know, our children are so moulded by what we think is important as a parent. So I guess if we think empathy is important, as a parent, there's no way out of that you're going to have empathetic children, right? It kind of just is.

Dr. Michele: Yep.

Zoe: Coming back to that modelling piece.

Dr. Michele: That's it. I think the first thing we've done as parents is we've made it too hard—it isn't. The most wonderful thing about the research that we're talking about today about Barbie and playing, the ‘2 Kind Rule', about putting a box by your door—every one of those is simple. Every one of them does not mean that we have to go home and read another 5000-page book

on how to be a good parent. It's just taking a single moment, that may be the most powerful moment of our role of a mum and dad and saying, 'How do we want our kids to turn out'?

We have these moments of a few years, though the majority of kids are coming now and staying with us a few more, so we may have a lot longer than we thought. But it's taking a moment to say, 'What are the traits that I want to see in my child'? And if you can identify those traits, like empathy, we've been talking about, what you'll begin to do is find simple ways—here's the key—to weave it into your daily living. From playing to talking to modelling to reading a book, you'll just be able to take it up a notch, and as a result, it spills over.

The only other thing, I think, we're not doing that we need to credit ourselves is we need connection as mums and dads too. We're lonely. So if you can reach out and maybe do a Zoom meeting with somebody else, that is powerful as well. Simple ideas, but that's how we raise a strong, caring generation of kids.

Zoe: So beautiful. And I absolutely—I'm nodding now, I'm the one doing the silent nodding. Because this is not another thing to put to the to-do list; this is about weaving in what's important to you as part of the daily fibre of your lives. It's so simple and beautiful yet profound and important. So thank you for that message.

And I always ask the same question at the end of every episode, which is if you could give just one gift—I think I might know what you might say—but if you could give just one gift to all the mothers in the world, what would that one gift be, and why?

Dr. Michele: You are so powerful, the most powerful person in your children's lives. Don't do too much. Instead of trying to be the verb, right now just be a noun. Be the mom, be the dad, but most importantly, just say, ‘I'm good enough as I am. I'm gonna get my kids through a very tough time. But strong together is how we do it, and if you lace it with empathy, that's how we survive’.

Zoe: Beautiful. Thank you so much. I've absolutely loved this conversation and unpacking these fascinating topics.

Dr. Michele: Oh, thank you.

Zoe: So thank you.

Dr. Michele: You're welcome. Thank you.

Zoe Blaskey: So thanks again to Barbie for sponsoring this special episode. If you want any more information around the study Barbie and Cardiff University have conducted then please visit barbie.com/en-gb/benefitsofdollplay, and I will see you next time.