A University of Michigan study of nearly 14,000 college students found that students today have about 40% less empathy than college kids had in the 1980s and 1990s. Michele Borba, an educational psychologist and author of Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our-All-About-Me World, argues that that the rise of narcissism and loss of empathy are key reasons for why nearly a third of college kids are depressed and mental health problems among kids are on the rise.
Denmark, the land of the happiest people in the world (pdf), takes empathy seriously, with an hour of empathy-building each week a required part the national curriculum for all kids aged 6 to 16. [...]
Measuring its effectiveness is difficult. Danes are famously among the happiest people in the world due to everything from high levels of income equality and the generosity of its citizens to each other, though some wonder whether this is because they have very low expectations for happiness. The country’s remarkable social safety net means there are fewer reasons for people to feel unhappy, since they know they have good health care, education, and elder care. Even so, one recent study showed 38% of Danish women and 32% of Danish men received treatment for a mental disorder at some point during their life, higher than global averages and certainly high for such purportedly happy people.
Happiness is a complex concept, so perhaps Klassen Tid‘s “success” is simply recognizing that empathy is a skill and not an inherent trait. Kids need to practice it the same way they work at math or soccer.
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