During November and December schools throughout the district will focus on the core values of tolerance and respect for others. Here is an article on ways parents can support this initiative, written by our elementary counselor, Claudia Trinklein-Engman.

The building of respect, tolerance and empathy is a somewhat sophisticated idea, though the rudiments can begin to be developed early. It is as much about tolerating and embracing differences among people as it is to being exposed to those differences. Empathy building begins with personal awareness. With kindergarteners, school counselors discuss the unique and shared traits among students. Initially, the concept is quite broad, such as how all the children are in kindergarten and all of them live in Mill Valley. At the same time, some have blue eyes, some hazel, some are boys and some are girls. These different and similar qualities are straightforward and easy to identify.

The stage is now set for conversations in first and second grade about how some differences can be seen and others are not readily apparent. Counselors have the kids make lists that could include a child who is confined to a wheelchair, a child who has profound speech difficulties, a child who is notably shorter than the rest of the class and cannot reach something, a child who needs a hearing device or especially strong glasses, or a child who does not speak English well. Out of these lists, counselors then encourage the groups to speak specifically to ways in which they could be helpful to a child with a special need, such as holding the door open for the child in a wheelchair or helping reach something for a shorter child. Students talk about how it might feel to be confined to a wheel chair or to not be able to hear well.

We try very hard to normalize the fact that all of us have something that does not work as well as we would like it to or have something that makes us feel different from our peers. Out of these discussions often comes a better understanding of differences in general. Learning to be tolerant and respectful stems from understanding. This is good material for a family discussion. For instance, Mom might have a chronically sore back. It is not necessarily apparent, but if the information is known among family members, they can help when she needs to reach for something in a high place. Another example is that Dad is slightly hard of hearing and family members may need to remember to speak clearly and make eye contact with him.

Empathy includes tolerance and inclusion of religious and cultural differences as well. Our schools try very hard to expose children to many different possibilities. As families, we can augment empathy-building outside of the classrooms. Children could visit Chinatown or Japantown, see movies about children from other cultures, visit and possibly volunteer with a parent at the Redwoods, deliver gifts to a homeless shelter, volunteer with an adult to feed the needy during a holiday celebration. One local parent deliberately had her child play soccer on a San Rafael team instead of a Mill Valley team, to expose her daughter to children from a greater variety of cultures.

By third grade and beyond, empathy-building becomes much more personalized. We begin to discuss what it is like to have a friend who is different from other friends. Developmentally, this is a time when children begin to want to be like everyone else. Being different can be difficult. Embracing different opinions, different friends, and being different yourself is oftentimes challenging. As adults, we need to foster opportunities in which our children can talk freely about the experience of "being different" and living within a community in which people are sometimes uniquely different from each other.

We need to model empathy, not only within the family, but on a much more global scale as well. Above all else, we need to help our children talk about what "being different" is all about. In kindergarten, having blue eyes might be easily reconcilable and certainly not material for being personally shunned. But as a child gets older, having learning disabilities or physical limitations might be possibly stigmatic. Keep the dialog going. Help our children respect differences. Nurture tolerance. It is important to their future and to ours.