Empathy is the ability to imagine how someone else is feeling in a particular situation and respond with care. Teaching empathy is a complex process as it involves understanding about one’s feelings, and being aware about others too have different thoughts and feelings. Whether he/she can be able to recognise a particular situation and put themselves in that situation to know how it really feels to go through that situation.
Today’s generation greatly lack this most important skill. The modern era provides all the needs and wants without realising the real hustle behind it. Social media and gadgets also serve unrealistic motivation which demands high standards.
Why children need to know about empathy?
Younger children are basically ego-centric (think about themselves and fulfill their immediate needs), and hence less aware about considering the needs of the others. Empathy always promotes good interpersonal as well as intrapersonal relationship. It also helps improve the emotional intelligence, tolerance and acceptance of others.
So let us understand briefly about how gradually children can develop this skill.
Understand about positive and negative feelings
Children need to know about different feelings like happy, joy, excitement, sad, frustration, jealousy, irritation and so. Talk about these feelings and also explain how do we respond or react to these feelings. Once they understand, it is easy to relate those feelings with others.
For instance when a boy pushes the other one and gets hurt, you can relate this with your child. I think the other boy must be feeling hurt and sad just like you felt when your elder brother pushed you yesterday.
Use “I” messages
I messages always concern about how oneself feels and be clear about what people really think from their perspective or point of view. It also models the importance of self awareness.
For instance I don’t like when you hit your brother or I like when you share your toys with your sister. These kind of phrases slowly help the child to get a clear perspective of what is desirable and undesirable behaviours.
‘I’m Sorry’ is just not enough
Apologising for making a mistake is really a good manners. But at times children may not know the deep meaning of the word sorry and why it is needed to be told. Saying sorry is just not enough to learn empathy. It also brushes away the consequences of incident. Parents need to explain the consequences so that child is aware about his/her mistakes and the need not to repeat it again and also how to be empathetic in such situation.
For example “Look! how severely your brother got hurt after you pushed him. He is bleeding and it might take few days for him to recover. Let us see if he is okay. We must together do a first aid treatment.”
This helps the child become aware about the consequences and also fixes the problem without any fuss.
Help children to validate their difficult feelings
Parents can always help children to go through different feelings without trying to fix it in a hurry. The reason behind it is that they need to independently know about different feelings and how to manage those emotions. When they face difficulty in managing the emotion, you can always demonstrate by playing or narrating stories. For instance You just saw the cartoon; how does the pig feel when it is bullied by others? How do you feel if you were there in that situation? These analysation help children to better understand how they feel if they were in the similar situation.
Empathy is putting yourself in others’ shoes. It is one of the essential life skills children require in today’s world. It also prevents negativity, bullying and thus help the child to evolve as a better human being.
Image by André Santana AndreMS
