Expanding Children’s Circle of Concern

[Dr. Richard Weissbourd]: I also think that we need to expand kids’ circle of concern. And here’s what I mean by this. Often when you talk about caring, we talk about it as like a quantity. You either have it, a lot of it or a little bit. When we talk about empathy, we often talk about as having a lot or a little. But almost everybody cares for somebody. Almost everybody has empathy for somebody. The much bigger issue or another big issue in my mind, is who do we care for? Do we care for people who are different from us in race or class or gender or sexual orientation or gender orientation or political orientation or religious orientation? Do we care for people who are different from us? Do we care for people? Do we help kids and guide kids in caring for people who may fall off their screen? Do we help them care for the bus driver, for the server in the restaurant, for a custodian in their school building, for the school secretary? Do we put these people on our kids’ screen? And I emphasize caring across difference because it’s important in itself, but also because I think it’s the foundation of justice that when you can understand value, take the perspectives of the multiple diverse people in your communities, you can represent their interests in decisions around fairness and justice. If you can’t appreciate people who are different from you, you can’t represent those interests in the same way.