Empathic Babies, Children, and Teens



Today I am participating in a 28-day virtual tour for a new book titled Whose Stuff is this? Finding Freedom from the Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You written by Yvonne Perry. The book offers empowering, proactive techniques to help empathic people manage energy and information overload coming from the collective unconsciousness of Earth. See http://whosestuffisthis.com/ for details.


Many children—especially spiritually-sensitive kids—are affected by energy overload or empathy fatigue that comes from being intuitive and not knowing how to handle the info-energy they receive.

Yesterday, Yvonne visited [Pat Bertram: Drag On My Feet]. Today, she is my guest blogger. I hope you enjoy the article she wrote about how kids develop empathy and intuition.



Empathic Babies, Children, and Teens

By Yvonne Perry

Empathy is what makes other people matter to us and reminds us to acknowledge the people around us as we understand and share their feelings. Empathy exists in early mother-infant bonding. Even before birth, a baby in the womb is sensitive to the mother’s feelings, whether positive, neutral, or negative. Once born, a baby shows receptivity to both parents’ anger, tension, and depression, as well as their caring, responsiveness, and love. You’ve probably noticed how they imitate your facial expressions, smiling in response to your smile. They also may cry if they hear another baby cry. This type of response is a step in the development of empathy and the ability to share the feelings of another person.

Babies absorb the mental and emotional energy of the people around them. They don’t filter anything; they simply receive. As a child ages, this empathic tendency may increase and get out of control. Some children pick up the emotions, energy, or thoughts of others to the degree that it becomes overwhelming and interrupts the development of their social and emotional life. Because these children do not know how to set personal boundaries (or that they need to), they do not realize when they are in another person’s mental or emotional space, much less how invasive this can be to that person. It can also lower the child’s own vibrational level.

An empath is sensitive to what is obvious as well as unseen things such as ghosts and the thoughts, emotions, and illnesses they sense around them. Empaths may get hunches, see mental pictures, hear voices, or have a gut feeling that supplies hidden information about people and situations. They may also get a physical sensation in their body that lets them know where another person is afflicted or suffering.

You may have heard of Indigo Children or Crystal Kids who have intuitive gifts that surprise or even astound adults. These empathic children easily pick up on the feelings and thoughts of adults and others as they unconsciously reach into human and spirit energy fields to gather information and understand things around them. Seeing with their spiritual eyes, feeling with their spiritual senses, hearing with their spiritual ears, they may give information about a past life, tell of events before they happen, see ghosts, or know something about another person or situation that no one else does. Today, as many as one in four children have this ability and are tuned into the higher frequency all the time.

Being an empath is very draining for an adult. Just imagine what it feels like to be an intuitive or empathic child and not have the language to explain it to your parents or teachers. A child who is overloaded with the energy of others may have on-going illnesses, show depressive episodes, lash out in anger, cry without reason, or try to “fix” things between adults who argue or do not get along well. A child or teen who sees or hears in the spirit realm may act out because he or she feels overwhelmed and does not know how to express what he or she is experiencing. The problem is compounded when adults will not listen, try to hush the child, or refuse to believe the child’s report of psychic incidents.

We do our intuitive children a great injustice when we invalidate their experiences and intuitive abilities. But, many parents simply don't know what to do with kids who see or hear spirits, talk about a deceased relative they never met in body, give clues into past lives, predict future events, or know some family secret they haven’t been privy to. In some cases, the “hushing” parent also has some paranormal gifts in operation that he or she is not comfortable talking about—maybe they were shushed by their parents and are simply mimicking the parenting role model they were given. As parents, teachers, and counselors we need to teach children how to properly use this empathic gift, but many adults do not trust their own intuition much less recognize their children’s spiritual abilities. Empathic kids need someone they can talk to and they need information on how to keep their auras clear, to open and shut their intuitive abilities at will, and set energetic boundaries. But, where do adults go to learn how to help these empathic kids and teens?

The more you read and study this topic, the better you will be able to answer your children’s questions and help them manage their intuitive gifts. Dr. Caron Goode and I invite you to learn more about a book we have written. It is titled WHOSE STUFF IS THIS? Finding Freedom from the Detrimental Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You. Learn more at http://whosestuffisthis.com/

Come along on the tour with us. Tomorrow’s blog stop will be at [The Shift Guru with Barbara Joye]. See the entire tour schedule at http://tinyurl.com/EmpathTour.

Empathy in Children and Teens

As we go through life, we learn many different lessons and things that we may forget. However, we also learn things that are imperative if we are to become good, well- rounded adults. One of the first things any of us need to learn is empathy.

Empathy is generally learned during this first two years of life. As infants, we bond with a nurturing caregiver and this helps us establish trust. This nurturing figure is there for us and a bond is set. As we get older we learn different things hurt us physically and mentally. We also learn that these same things can hurt others around us and we understand this because we know what it feels like to be hurt. This helps us build trust and learn to form positive relationships, as we grow older. Society sets rules and boundaries and we learn to live within them and with each other. If we do not have a nurturing figure in our infancy, we learn mistrust and do not understand the concept of what hurts me will hurt you. As a matter of fact, any feelings for anyone else or even oneself may not exist. As a result, rules are not obeyed and boundaries are never set. Many times, childhood bullies are not learning trust nor are they being nurtured as they should be and will grow up without regard for rules or boundaries of others.

Children are in the early stages of learning empathy. They are learning trust and their needs are being met by the nurturing and trusting figure in their lives. It is usually before the age of 10 where they are still learning right from wrong and need a lot of direction. As a result, some children are picking bullies for friends or following them. Those children who try to stop bullying early on have a grasp on right from wrong and know it well. Their empathy level is probably high. Between the ages of 10-13, knowing right from wrong is coming to form and crucial. If children have not learned trust or empathy before these years, chances are their knowing right from wrong is skewed. (This is why many times these children hurt animals and do not care about how it affects the animal). Children who do have empathy but follow bullies know that this abuse is wrong. However, they also allow fear to take over here and follow these abusers. Inside, they feel terrible and cannot face the one they torment. As the bully never learned trust or was nurtured properly, right or wrong will be what they believe is right and wrong and not what actually is right and wrong. As a result, they cannot empathize when someone is hurt or going through a difficult time. Also, they do not learn trust so in relationships they are detached running in and out of others lives without a thought or care. Any pain they inflict upon another person is something that they cannot understand or register.

As teens, we start to see these bullies break the law, manipulate to get what they want and use charm and charisma to bring others into their fold. As they never learned about nurture or trust, they cannot comprehend how others feel or are affected. During the crucial years of grasping right from wrong, they were setting their own standards for what is right and wrong and not following what society has outlined. This leads to many rules broken, boundaries crossed and people seriously hurting others.

Empathy allows us to feel. It allows us to coexist with others who are different than we are. We can rejoice when our children make good grades and comprehend their feelings when they are in pain. Our friendships grow and thrive as we support one another in a healthy manner through empathy. It allows us to stand by our spouse when the going gets tough and care for elderly parents in their twilight years. Most importantly, it allows us to know ourselves and live a normal healthy existence. However, to achieve this, we must learn empathy during childhood and the teen years. If there is no empathy, the person pretty much ceases to exist. That can lead to dangerous problems down the road for all involved.

I was reading an article about two teenage girls from Northern California. They are Emily and Sarah Buder and they wrote a book entitled Letters to a Bullied Girl. The inspiration for this book was a girl in Northern California named Olivia Gardner. Olivia was experiencing severe bullying and peer abuse at the hands of her peers. She suffered indignities such as having her book bag dragged through mud, peers creating an “Olivia Haters” page on the internet and tormenters would always tell her to die. Needless to say, Olivia was suicidal which comes of no surprise to me. When the Buder sisters found out about Olivia and what she was dealing with, they decided to write this book. The project grew as they started to hear from other bullied kids, kids who did bully and felt bad about it, adults who bullied growing up and felt bad and adult survivors who still struggle with the affects of being bullied and abused by their peers.

I commend these two young ladies for reaching out to Olivia who was a complete stranger. Today, it is so rare to see teens have empathy and reach out to others in a compassionate manner. I have the up most respect for these sisters. They probably do not realize how many other kids and teens they helped in their project. Sometimes, hearing these things from a peer rather than an adult or someone in authority can make a greater difference. I hope this book creates a wave with other kids out there and they learn something from it. Kindness can go a long way.

Olivia being suicidal is not uncommon. Many who are bullied and abused by their peers develop depression which leads to suicide eventually. We refer to it as bullycide as this is suicide as a result of peer abuse and bullying. How can we expect someone to grow into a well adjusted and balanced adult when as children, they suffer these indignities and have nobody there to help them? Or, the kids are told to just ignore it and stop taking it personally as it is a fact of life. Schools put so much emphasis on test scores and grades. How can someone excel when they are constantly told they are scum and need to die?

School is starting back in many places. We need to enforce these programs and laws so our children are safe and safe from each other. So they can score high in grades and become productive citizens some day. Emily and Sarah already know kindness and they exercise it. I hope others use these ladies as an example and not think of them as a joke. They both have hearts of gold and a powerful message to share.

Most importantly, I was glad to see the book was dedicated to Corrine Sides. Corrine was an exceptional young lady who did die of bullycide. May her spirit live on through this book. Angels do exist after all.

Resource Cited: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-and-sarah-buder/letters-to-a-bullied-girl_b_116970.html

Elizabeth Bennett is the author of Peer Abuse Know More! Bullying From A Psychological Perspective and resides in Los Angeles, California. To learn more, visit http://www.peerabuse.info .