Earlier this year, I wrote about teaching empathy, and whether you are a parent who does so. The idea behind it is from Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the graduate school of education, who runs the Making Caring Common project, aimed to help teach kids to be kind.

I know, you’d think they are or that parents are teaching that themselves, right? Not so, according to a new study released by the group. (Chat with Weissbourd here.)

About 80 percent of the youth in the study said their parents were more concerned with their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others. The interviewees were also three times more likely to agree that “My parents are prouder if I get good grades in my classes than if I’m a caring community member in class and school.”

Weissbourd and his cohorts have come up with recommendations about how to raise children to become caring, respectful and responsible adults. Why is this important? Because if we want our children to be moral people, we have to, well, raise them that way.

“Children are not born simply good or bad and we should never give up on them. They need adults who will help them become caring, respectful, and responsible for their communities at every stage of their childhood,” the researchers write.

The five strategies to raise moral, caring children, according to Making Caring Common:

1. Make caring for others a priority

Why? Parents tend to prioritize their children’s happiness and achievements over their children’s concern for others. But children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, whether it’s passing the ball to a teammate or deciding to stand up for friend who is being bullied.
How? Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority. A big part of that is holding children to high ethical expectations, such as honoring their commitments, even if it makes them unhappy. For example, before kids quit a sports team, band, or a friendship, we should ask them to consider their obligations to the group or the friend and encourage them to work out problems before quitting.
Try this
• Instead of saying to your kids: “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” say “The most important thing is that you’re kind.”
• Make sure that your older children always address others respectfully, even when they’re tired, distracted, or angry.
• Emphasize caring when you interact with other key adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers whether your children are good community members at school.

2. Provide opportunities for children to practice caring and gratitude
Why? It’s never too late to become a good person, but it won’t happen on its own. Children need to practice caring for others and expressing gratitude for those who care for them and contribute to others’ lives. Studies show that people who are in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate, and forgiving—and they’re also more likely to be happy and healthy.
How? Learning to be caring is like learning to play a sport or an instrument. Daily repetition—whether it’s a helping a friend with homework, pitching in around the house, or having a classroom job—make caring second nature and develop and hone youth’s caregiving capacities. Learning gratitude similarly involves regularly practicing it.
Try this
• Don’t reward your child for every act of helpfulness, such as clearing the dinner table. We should expect our kids to help around the house, with siblings, and with neighbors and only reward uncommon acts of kindness.
• Talk to your child about caring and uncaring acts they see on television and about acts of justice and injustice they might witness or hear about in the news.
• Make gratitude a daily ritual at dinnertime, bedtime, in the car, or on the subway. Express thanks for those who contribute to us and others in large and small ways.

3. Expand your child’s circle of concern.
Why? Almost all children care about a small circle of their families and friends. Our challenge is help our children learn to care about someone outside that circle, such as the new kid in class, someone who doesn’t speak their language, the school custodian, or someone who lives in a distant country.
How? Children need to learn to zoom in, by listening closely and attending to those in their immediate circle, and to zoom out, by taking in the big picture and considering the many perspectives of the people they interact with daily, including those who are vulnerable. They also need to consider how their
decisions, such as quitting a sports team or a band, can ripple out and harm various members of their communities. Especially in our more global world, children need to develop concern for people who live in very different cultures and communities than their own.
Try this
• Make sure your children are friendly and grateful with all the people in their daily lives, such as a bus driver or a waitress.
• Encourage children to care for those who are vulnerable. Give children some simple ideas for stepping into the “caring and courage zone,” like comforting a classmate who was teased.
• Use a newspaper or TV story to encourage your child to think about hardships faced by children in another country.

4. Be a strong moral role model and mentor.
Why? Children learn ethical values by watching the actions of adults they respect. They also learn values by thinking through ethical dilemmas with adults, e.g. “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn’t like her?”
How? Being a moral role model and mentor means that we need to practice honesty, fairness, and caring ourselves. But it doesn’t mean being perfect all the time. For our children to respect and trust us, we need to acknowledge our mistakes and flaws. We also need to respect children’s thinking and listen
to their perspectives, demonstrating to them how we want them to engage others.
Try this:
• Model caring for others by doing community service at least once a month. Even better, do this service with your child.
• Give your child an ethical dilemma at dinner or ask your child about dilemmas they’ve faced.

5. Guide children in managing destructive feelings
Why? Often the ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings.
How? We need to teach children that all feelings are okay, but some ways of dealing with them are not helpful. Children need our help learning to cope with these feelings in productive ways.
Try this
Here’s a simple way to teach your kids to calm down: ask your child to stop, take a deep breath through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and count to five. Practice when your child is calm. Then, when you see her getting upset, remind her about the steps and do them with her. After a while she’ll start to do it on her own so that she can express her feelings in a helpful and appropriate way.

After 10 hours of labor, my doctor turned to me and said, “Time for a C-section.” Before I could say “Why?” or even “Huh?” I was carted off and cut up like a roast turkey while I lay there gritting my teeth and wondering: How did this happen?

While cesareans are often necessary to preserve the health of both mom and baby, stories abound of doctors being slash-happy to ward off malpractice suits or even just to get home in time for dinner. To this day, I ask myself if there’s anything I could have done to dodge my C-section, and it turns out there are plenty of ways to at least lower the odds. Here are 7 things moms can try to curb their risk of going under the knife.

Pick a doctor with a low C-section rate. First off, don't be shy: Ask your OB/GYN about their C-section rate. Like a batting average, it will give you a sense of whether a cesarean may be in your future, too. While 33 percent of births nationwide end up C-sections, the frequency for a particular physician can range way above or below that. “For a healthy woman with a single pregnancy past 37 weeks, you'd like to see that rate around 15 percent,” says Robert Atlas, M.D., an OB/GYN at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Center, New York, who's studied C-section for the past 10 years and acts as “C-section police” at his hospital, making sure the procedure is truly necessary. And since your primary provider may not be on shift the day your baby arrives, “find out the C-section rate of her call group as a whole,” adds Linda Rice, a certified nurse midwife at Harvard Vanguard in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. “Clinicians with higher C-section rates aren't necessarily bad doctors, but are usually just more conservative and will usually be forthcoming about where they lie on that spectrum.” If a doctor hems and haws about his answer, that's a red flag he has something to hide. 

Or choose a midwife instead. Although midwives handle only 8 percent of all births, they boast lower C-section rates across the board compared to those overseen by doctors, hovering around 3 to 4 percent. Why? Midwives don't perform C-sections, although they can call for one if necessary. The difference is they just don't think they're necessary as often as doctors do. This is due to their training, says Bruce Flamm, M.D., an obstetrician at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Riverside, California. Midwives are taught to “see labor as physiology,” he explains. “We OBs are trained to see labor as a disaster waiting to happen.” 

Hire a doula. Doulas attend only 1 percent of births, yet studies show their presence lowers the odds of C-section by 40 percent. A doula doesn't deliver the baby; she's just there to ensure the delivery happens the way the mom wants, making suggestions and advocating on her behalf in case the mom is too distracted or delirious to make these decisions herself. “She may put the mother in the best positions for her and the baby and suggest the right questions once an OB would suggest a C-section,” says Stephanie Heintzeler, a doula in New York, New York. 

Don't get induced. “Induction increases the odds of a cesarean to 40 percent,” says Dr. Atlas. “The reason is if the cervix is not ready, you're forcing a process that might not be ready to be forced.” So unless an induction is medically necessary, try to hold off until 41 weeks, one week after your official due date. After that point a baby's health begins to be compromised; by 42 weeks an induction is par for the course since your placenta stops working well enough to keep your baby healthy. 

Labor at home as long as possible. Traditionally hospitals admit women who are at least four centimeters dilated. But new research suggests most women can wait at home until six centimeters -- and that this could lower C-section rates. The reason: As soon as you set foot in a hospital, you could be exposed to a range of medical interventions that could slow down your birth and pave the way toward a cesarean. “Early interventions confuse the body in labor and things don't progress,” says Heintzeler. “The more interventions the mother has -- like an epidural or Pitocin -- the more likely she will have a C-section.” Even just being stuck in a bed hooked up to an IV and fetal monitor can throw a wrench in things. “Being up and not tethered to monitors or IVs is not only more comfortable but can help your body proceed through labor normally,” says Rice. 

Know that the “standard” labor rate is outdated. One of the first lessons OB/GYNs learn in med school is Friedman's Curve, based on a researcher who found that women's “active” labor (past four centimeters) progresses at about one centimeter per hour. Anything slower was deemed “failure to progress” and a prime C-section candidate. The problem? This research dates back to 1955, and a lot has changed since then that makes this benchmark obsolete. For instance, most of Friedman's study subjects were sedated, and younger, and slimmer than women are now -- all of which makes his curve ideal rather than average. Yet many hospitals still use it as their yardstick to determine whether a C-section is merited. Bottom line: Don't let anyone tell you you're not “progressing fast enough.” Also keep in mind that “hospitals are in the business of moving things along,” points out Debi Tracy, a certified childbirth educator in Oceanside, New York. “So if you're sitting there and not progressing, it's very likely they'll make suggestions to speed things up, often to benefit their bottom line, not to the benefit of the child or mom.” 

If your doc recommends a C-section, ask these questions first. “I have three questions I give my clients to ask their OB if a C-section is suggested,” says Heintzeler. “Those questions are: 1) Is my baby okay, is there any danger at this point? 2) Am I okay? 3) Can we please wait? If an OB agrees to wait, it shows there is no urgency, just impatience. Sometimes they will be like, 'Well, we can wait but things will probably look the same in one to two hours, so why not do the C-section right now?' Yet if we wait those one to two hours, most likely a C-section can be avoided, and if not, the mother knows she did everything she could and had enough time. She will feel more in control, that's the key.”