Mirror, Mirror on the Wall — And in the Brain

6000 km away from us, in a Japanese zoo – a monkey named Punch captivated the whole world. The internet seemed to be sobbing over him for being rejected by his mother and being bullied by the fellow monkeys in the zoo. To cope with his distress, Punch is seen clenching his orangutan plush toy for comfort and never seems to leave it.

Almost everyone across the world was feeling a sense of empathy for the baby monkey, wanting to do something to make him feel better.

You also might see yourself in his situation and recall memories where you might have felt rejected & lonely. Why? Why are we empathising with a monkey, why are we mirroring his emotions and feeling sad? The name itself suggests this, this is because we possess mirror neurons.

Mirror Neurons often fire when we feel an emotion ourselves and also when we observe someone else feeling the same emotion. Apart from an emotional aspect, even for physical activity – research showed that these neurons fired when a monkey observed a human grabbing a ball and also when it grabbed the ball on its own, this way mirror neurons help us to observe and also imitate behavior.

As one can imagine, these neurons can play an extremely important role during the early years of your child. Have you noticed your toddler acting out or repeating certain things you usually do around them? Or with your infant, when you smile and they smile back, or when we make a sound and they try to imitate it? Children learn through observation, hence it becomes crucial to provide them a foundation where they benefit from observing their peers and elders, both at home and at school.

This is why the environment children grow up in matters so much. When they observe kindness, curiosity, patience, and cooperation, they slowly begin to mirror these behaviours themselves.

At Navriti, we take deep care to focus on social and emotional learning right from the beginning. We aim to provide nurturing environments so that when children observe better, they mirror better. Even simple classroom practices play an important role in this. When teachers write on blackboards, children watch carefully and begin to mirror the formation of letters and patterns in their own handwriting. Similarly, our play-based learning modules allow children to observe and interact with their peers, learning cooperation, language, and behaviour simply by participating together.Much like how people across the world instinctively felt for Punch, children too are constantly observing and reflecting the emotions and actions around them. When the environment around them models empathy, curiosity, and collaboration, they naturally begin to reflect the same qualities — laying the foundation for thoughtful and socially aware individuals.
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Written by Kangna Verma, Admission & Communication Specialist, The Navriti School