Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant do not address the church or discipleship in their article in The Atlantic. Still, their writing about parenting provides an excellent springboard to reflect on character development and discipleship. They report that over 90% of parents in the United States say that one of their top priorities is that their children be caring. Yet when you ask children about their parents’ desires, 81 percent say their parents value achievement and happiness over caring. The Grants write, “Kids learn what’s important to adults not by listening to what we say, but by noticing what gets our attention. . . Kids, with their sensitive antennae, pick up on all this. They see their peers being celebrated primarily for the grades they get and the goals they score, not for the generosity they show” (36). The Grants started to observe themselves. They noted at the dinner table they frequently asked their children about accomplishments: Did your team win? How did the test go? They state:
To demonstrate that caring is a core value, we realized that we needed to give it comparable attention. We started changing our questions. At our family dinners, we now ask our children what they did to help others. At first, “I forget” was the default reply. But after a while, they started giving more thoughtful answers. “I shared my snack with a friend who didn’t have one,” for example, or “I helped a classmate understand a question she got wrong on a quiz.” They had begun actively looking for opportunities to be helpful, and acting upon them. As parents, we’ve also tried to share our own experiences with helping—and to make a point of including the moments we’ve failed (36).
They comment, “The point is not to badger kids into kindness, or dangle carrots for caring, but to show that these qualities are noticed and valued” (37).
In the article the Grants cite an annual survey of U.S. college students that showed a substantial drop in empathy from 1979-2009. (Reading that, reminded me of Sherry Turkle stating empathy has declined even further in the smartphone era.) Love of neighbor and caring for others are central to following Jesus. The Grants’ article communicates an important reality: empathy, and the caring actions that flow from it, is increasingly becoming an against-the-current character trait. We cannot assume Jesus followers will necessarily have compassion for others simply because it is a common human character trait. Part of discipleship will be nurturing it.
The Grants’ suggestion of asking questions that honor caring is helpful for this particular issue and in relation to children, but is has broader potential. Let us borrow the questions they suggest, but do more than that.
What questions are we asking others in our Christian communities? What character values do we reinforce through these questions? What behaviors do we want to honor? How might we follow the Grants example and change the questions we ask—with children and adults? Let us thoughtfully intervene through questions and affirming comments that build disciples’ Christlike character and values.
Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant, “Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kinds and Start Raising Kind Ones,” The Atlantic (Dec. 2019): 36-37.