But his empathy development had its ups and downs. When Luka was around six years old, he went through a phase of being extremely curious about death and dying. I explained to him that people die for various reasons, but most people live long lives, and only when they get really old is it their time to go. Around this time, a dear friend of mine in her fifties came for a visit to escape the drama she had going on at home. Her husband had recently left her for a twentysomething. She’d had the same gorgeous skin all of the years I’d known her, and now had chic gray hair that she didn’t fuss with. As we were all hanging out in the living room, Luka suddenly asked my friend, “How old are you?” I gently explained to him that even though people ask him how old he is, it’s not polite for him to ask adults how old they are (a sentiment I don’t totally agree with, but that’s a rant for another day). Luka looked my friend straight in the eye and said, in all earnestness, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just that you look so old. Like you’re going to die right now.”
I wanted to die right now. From utter humiliation! In fact, nothing sounded better at that moment than my dying right now.
Luka’s statement would have been hurtful if it had been directed at anyone, but he was saying this to a woman whose husband had just replaced her with someone half her age! My friend tried to laugh it off, while I awkwardly, talking faster than an auctioneer, tried to apologize/compliment/somehow make it better, until I realized shutting up would probably be the best course of action. Luka didn’t mean any harm by what he said, it’s just really hard for a six-year-old to understand that gray hair doesn’t mean you’re ancient or to empathize with the idea of aging as something to be embarrassed about. (Honestly, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around why our culture turns getting older into such a negative.) Obviously, he had yet to master the art of empathy or even dip a toe into the practice. But during those young years, he tried. He really tried to be empathetic.
When Luka was seven years old, during one of his soccer games, he bumped into another kid and the kid fell down. At halftime, as I was passing out the obligatory orange slices, I pulled him aside and said, “Hey, if you bump into someone and they fall down, give them a hand to help them up. It’s just a nice thing to do and you’d appreciate it if someone did that for you. Okay?”
My dear son spent the rest of the game running around the field helping up every single player who fell down. And when seven-year-olds are playing soccer, there’s a lot of falling down! He wasn’t just helping the kids on his team. No, no. He was helping up the kids on the other team as well! The coach was annoyed, the parents looked confused, and Philip was chuckling and giving me the “See what you did!?!” look. I just stood there, slightly uncomfortable with the chaos I had caused, yet wearing the cheesiest grin on my face. I broke into laughter every time my kid booked it across the field to help yet another kid up. By the end of the game, Luka had played the least amount of soccer of anyone on the field, but he was completely out of breath from running back and forth like a crazy person to help his fallen comrades.
Then the preteen years hit and my thoughtful son suddenly became a lot more self-centered. We all get caught up in ourselves at times, whether we want to admit it or not, but during those teenage years everything becomes all about you and how hard and terrible life is. As much as seeing my sweet boy turn into a brooding, hormonal monster made me want to tear my hair out, I also really felt for him. As I watched Luka become more and more consumed with himself and his problems, I wondered how I could help him out of his funk. Yapping at him about it wouldn’t help much. I needed something proactive, something that would lead him to his own epiphany.
I didn’t have to reach as far back as my own teenage years to relate to my son’s self-absorbed despair; I’d been there myself following my divorce. I knew exactly what it was like to become so obsessed with your misery that the gravitational center of the world shifts to revolve entirely around you. And I also knew that I could pull myself free from that sinkhole only when I deliberately focused on helping others.
When I spend one-on-one time with each of my children, I find they open up and tell me things that I probably wouldn’t hear about if our whole family was sitting at the dinner table together. I made plans to spend time with Luka one evening and spent all day racking my brain for something new we could do that would help him reorient his perspective to include others. When we got in the car that night I said, “We’re going to do something different today. Instead of just going to a restaurant for dinner, we’re going to play a game.”
Luka immediately rolled his eyes, because any game that a mother suggests to her teenager is bound to be lame and “for old people.” But I decided not to take the eye-rolling personally. His boy eyes were turning into man eyes, and the only way they could do that is if they rolled back and forth, usually in my presence. It’s science.
I continued, “Here’s the game. We have two hours to complete three random acts of kindness. No plan! We just drive around and look for three things we can do to help someone out or make someone’s day.”
Luka responded with a few more manly eye-development exercises. “Yeah, okay, whatever, but I’m really hungry.”
We started off by hitting up his favorite fast-food restaurant. As we went through the drive-through, a car pulled up behind us. “There’s our first act!” I said excitedly. “We’re going to pay for their meal.” When we got to the window to pay our bill, we told the cashier we wanted to wait for the car behind us to order so that we could cover their meal, too. As we waited, Luka’s face changed. This was exciting! Not lame. As soon as we finished paying and were handed our burgers and fries, I peeled out of the parking lot.
“Mom, we can’t just drive off! We need to stick around and see the person’s reaction!”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes at him. “Trust me, their reaction will be good! Who doesn’t appreciate a free meal? But if you’re going to be honest, are you wanting to stick around because you want praise from them? We all enjoy compliments. We all enjoy getting credit for the things we do. But are we willing to go out of our way to do something without waiting for the recognition?”
I knew that there would be many times in Luka’s life when he wouldn’t get the pat on the back he deserved. Doing something nice for another person could be its own reward, and if I could show Luka how to feel that—really feel it—I knew he’d be equipped with a new emotional tool that would help him lead a happier life.
After our first random act of kindness, we drove around and chatted until we passed a laundromat, which got us talking about how awesome it is that we have a washer and a dryer in our home, and how it’s something that we take for granted. We decided to turn around and head back to the laundromat, but first we stopped at a gas station to change a five-dollar bill into quarters. When we got to the parking lot, I said, “I want you to do it. I want you to walk into the laundromat, and I want you to pick somebody—whoever you want—and just hand them the pile of coins.”