The best way to teach empathy is to practice it.
What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings. Empathy is also the capacity to feel what the other person is feeling by trying to place yourself in their shoes. Compassion and sympathy together make empathy.
Martin Hoffman is a psychologist who studied the development of empathy. According to Hoffman, everyone is born with the ability to feel empathy. It comes easier for some children than the others but teaching empathy to a child is critical for their emotional growth.
How to teach empathy to your child?
1. Always listen to your children even when they are having a temper tantrum. Stay calm and try to understand their way of thinking. This gives them the message of being heard and they do the same. This also gives you a chance to understand your child better and react accordingly is in similar situations.
2. Pick up your child when he falls and tell him it’s okay to get hurt. Don’t teach ‘hit the floor or things’ around to vent out anger or hurt when they fall. Tell them it’s ok and that’s how you faced these situations as well.
3. Emotionally secure children are more empathetic. This emotional security comes by being close to the parents. Knowing that the parent answers to their needs and hears them out in meltdowns always helps.
4. Talk about negative feelings as well. We all talk about being happy and having a fun day, but we so often miss out on talking about anger, sadness, fear, guilt, disappointment, frustration and failure. Only when kids know of such things and associate with it, is when they will understand how others feel. Accepting and knowing negative emotions helps us work on them better and develops empathy and sympathy.
5. Responsibility and life skills go hand in hand. We need to teach our children to be responsible. Responsible for their behavior and themselves. Covering up their faults and failures in front of others because you want to have a good image never helps. Let the kids deal with situations. Understand they are responsible for how the other person feels and let them be responsible for their actions. Help and guide them on what you would have done in similar situations and then let them decide for themselves. Teach them to take small responsibilities like taking care of their siblings or tidying the house. Teach them and they will learn.
Empathetic children are better at coping with awkward situations and conflicts. They do not engage in negative behaviors like bullying and violence and grow up to be individuals with higher emotional quotient (EQs) which is far more important than having a higher intelligence quotient (IQs) to succeed both on the work front and in life.
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