Empathy is a complex skill that involves understanding another person’s perspective and responding appropriately. This skill grows to become the foundation of how we learn to interact with others in an effective way and can determine the quality of relationships we build throughout our lives. Needless to say, it’s important. We all want our children to grow up as caring, considerate, and understanding human beings. So, how can we help them become this? Here are a few tips for developing caring and empathetic children:
1. Model:
One of the best ways for children to learn anything is through modeling. Quite simply, when they observe someone modeling a particular behavior, they are much more likely to learn and repeat that behavior. Parents can model empathy by verbalizing their understandings of others’ feelings in various situations. For example, if your child is crying, you can say, “I see that you are crying. It seems like you are sad. Are you sad? I know it’s hard sometimes.” These few short sentences validate the child’s perspective and verbalize the connections between their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Providing them an experience where someone shows them empathy helps them build those pathways in the brain. This is important to do for them and can also be demonstrated in situations involving others’ feelings.
2. Make connections through observation:
In any public or family situation, you can point out situations where a person is behaving in a certain way and ask your child if they have any guesses for why they might be doing what they are doing. For example, “Why do you think that man is yelling?” If he or she doesn’t know you can discuss different possibilities and connect it with how we act when we are feeling a certain way. Another way to practice this type of perspective taking is to apply this to any conflict the child might have. For example, if she hits her brother, you can ask her how she thinks her brother feels when she hits him. A follow up question would be, “How do you feel when your brother hits you?” This type of dialogue is great for empathetic brain development and a great way to practice the Golden Rule (Treat others the way you would like to be treated.). Practicing this type of perspective taking at home, in public, and even through literature by discussing the characters, can be a great way to make connections through observation in order to develop empathy skills.
3. Listening and vulnerability:
Through interactions, we learn and practice empathy. One of the best ways to do this is by being a good listener. Allowing others to fully express their perspective naturally helps us to understand this perspective. This, of course, requires us to express our perspective appropriately when it is our turn to do so. This requires vulnerability and honesty as we express how we are feeling. This is one of the best ways we can model and practice empathy with our children.
4. Unplug:
If building empathy skills requires interaction with others, it is absolutely essential that we limit electronic screen time for ourselves and our children. If most of our free time is spent staring at our respective screens, this obviously reduces that amount of time we are interacting with others. This is only the tip of the iceberg, however. Studies show that too much time on electronics for developing brains can cause such problems as irritability, insomnia, poor social skills, poor memory, difficulty focusing, poor eye contact, impulse control, and disorganized behavior. Dr. Victoria Dunckley explains in her book, Reset Your Child’s Brain, that a child’s brain that is overly engaged in electronic screen time creates imbalances in the brain by providing too much activity in the reward centers and too little activity in regions associated with empathy. By substituting screen time for family game time, a leisurely walk, conversation, or other activities, you can have a major impact in building connection, modeling social interaction, and strengthening brain development.
By incorporating these strategies, you are well on your way to developing caring and empathetic children.