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How baby Rosie teaches Empathy

In Merrylee Primary School in Glasgow, Roots of Empathy and Action for Children offer sessions to help children to increase their empathy and recognise their emotions.

20 January 2025

Roots for empathy action for children rosie

“Hello baby Rosie how are you today? How are you today?” Sing the children of Merrylee Primary School in Glasgow at the beginning of the session of Roots of Empathy whilst tiny teacher Rosie’s father brings her around. Each child gently squeezes Rosie’s toes for a few seconds as a greeting.

Leading the session, Angela Dawson, Service Coordinator for Roots of Empathy at Action for Children, encourages and guides the children to look at Rosie and guess how she feels and why. “She smiled so she is happy”, says a little girl. “She looks at people’s faces so she is curious”, adds a little boy.

Action for Children piloted Roots of Empathy's work in Scotland 15 years ago, realising a need for emotional wellbeing in schools. Since then, it has been going strong, and no less than 57 programs are currently running.

Through experiential learning the children identify the emotions they can see in their baby and can relate it to themselves. This helps them to name and identify their own emotions and then bridge this learning to help them to be able to identify emotions in others which leads to empathy, understanding how another person feels and to feel with them. They also learn how the brain and the neurons are working,” explains Angela.

Sitting on her parents' lap, Rosie looks at the room and the eager children around her. Suddenly, she moves and touches her toes which attracts more excited exclamations from the children: she could not do it at their last time before Christmas.

Rosie is growing and, month after month, the class sees her and witnesses all the new things she learns. “How does it make you feel?” asks Angela. “Happy!” Answer together most of the children. “Excited”, adds another one. Rosie’s parents then update the class on what the five-month-old can do now: roll on her side, put her feet in her mouth (giggles from the class) and what new foods she now eats.

Pupils can also ask direct questions to the parents who share their own experiences or how they are still learning. For Angela, “It's good for the children to hear that adults are learning too, and they don't have all the answers.”

In between the activities, the songs and the questions to Rosie’s parents, the children are encouraged to share their feelings, questions and understand what Rosie might feel during the session. When she becomes fussy and her dad takes her in his arms, a little girl wisely comments, “When somebody feels safe they feel loved.”

The sessions ended with the children singing “Goodbye baby Rosie we will see you soon see you very soon”.

Roots for empathy action for children

Roots for Empathy and the School

Roots for Empathy comes from an evidence-based research showing that through their teaching and the understanding of emotions, levels of aggression and bullying come down, whilst levels of pro-social behaviours –kindness, caring, including others, and empathy – go up.

Roots of Empathy has three different curriculums: the kindergarten curriculum, the primary curriculum and the junior curriculum. The class and curriculum level are identified by what the school needs. For Merrylee Primary School, the pupils have 27 sessions over the school year. Nine themes are broken down with three visits in every theme: a pre-visit, a family visit and a post-visit and Angela visits the class every week and Rosie and her family once every three weeks.

“We have had really positive outcomes with the programme. We select classes that need to work on a little bit of nurture and empathy. One of the most positive impacts of the programme is that children with some level of social emotional difficulties or behavioural issues often learn how to respond positively to their peers. Having the baby here in real life, seeing it happen as it goes along, and having the time to reflect with adults, both the caregiver and the Roots of Empathy practitioner pointing out different things to them, it just makes sense to the pupils,” adds Catriona Kirk, Acting Head Teacher at Merrylee Primary School.

In the school, Roots of Empathy is funded through the Pupil Equity Fund – a Scottish governmental funding aimed at health and wellbeing for children. For Catriona, the programme has long lasting impact: “We have primary sevens that still talk and think about their baby from the program, often asking Angela news about them.”

Carolyn Godfrey, the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference attended one of the sessions and said:

It's been fantastic to be able to visit the Roots of Empathy program in the school and witness the good work that Action for Children is doing in this school and across Scotland. It is inspirational and has such a big impact on the lives of children, their families and their communities."

Carolyn Godfrey Action for Children