April 30, 2022

Quote of the Week

"If you judge people you have no time to love them" --Mother Teresa

Why Being Judgmental Comes Naturally And How To Curb It

We all make numerous judgments throughout our days, even if we don’t always realize it. Judging is a natural instinct that humans formed a long time ago to defend ourselves from situations that could cause us harm. We needed to be able to make quick judgments based on our observations to decide how we should react.

However, over time this instinct became less necessary for survival and is now part of our social behavior. We now tend to judge other people and situations because we do not understand them. When we are not familiar with someone or something, we become fearful and our immediate reaction is to judge them in a negative way to “protect” ourselves. We want to feel safe, so we label others as right or wrong, good or bad. Many times this judgment is due to a lack of empathy and compassion based on behaviors we learned from our upbringing (yes, our parents!).

Children enter this world with compassion, a natural and automatic response that has allowed humans to survive throughout history. The human brain is wired to respond to others who are suffering because helping them makes us feel good. However, even though children have the instinct to help others and be open-minded, it is our job as parents to teach them about differences and how to approach life in a non-judgmental way. Read this week's featured article to get some tips on raising less judgmental kids.

Reading Corner

Title: The Hungry Coat
By: Demi
Ages: 5-9


"Demi sprinkles droll humor and liberal doses of common sense throughout a traditional tale of Nasrettin Hooja, Turkey’s most famous folk hero. On his way to a banquet given by a rich friend, Nasrettin stops to catch a goat. Now late for his dinner, he doesn’t have time to change from his dirty, smelly clothes. Ignored by his friends, Nasrettin leaves and then returns after bathing and dressing in his most elegant clothing. Now greeted as a welcomed guest, Nasrettin feeds the finest banquet food to his coat—since it must have been his fine coat that his friends had wanted at the banquet, right? With the lesson learned, his friends cheer and toast his wisdom. The moral? “He who wears heaven in his heart is always well dressed.” Characteristic of Demi’s earlier work, the elegant illustrations are touched with golden accents, surrounded by ornate borders of tiny details, and filled with the rich colors and patterns of traditional Turkish paintings. Exquisite retelling and illustrations." --Kirkus reviews

Be the Change

Try out one of these 10 practices for raising non-judgemental kids.