“Empathy is when you’re able to understand and care about how someone else is feeling.”
Learn
Basic Concepts
- Developing empathy involves several foundational skills. Before you expect your child to fully demonstrate empathy, they must:
- Recognize that they have thoughts and feelings, which are independent from others’ thoughts and feelings (this is called Theory of Mind).
- Have the ability to see a situation from another person’s perspective.
- Recognize common feelings that most people experience (happy, sad, angry, etc.).
- Be able to sense what response could be appropriate or helpful to someone in a challenging situation.
- Be able to regulate their own emotional responses.
- Don’t be discouraged if your child doesn’t show empathy; it’s developmentally appropriate for young children to still be working on learning this skill.
- Children do not typically have the cognitive skills necessary to demonstrate deep empathy until age 9 or 10. (Understand how the capacity for empathy evolves with developmental age and brain development.)
- ‘Cognitive empathy’ (perspective-taking) rises steadily beginning in early adolescence.
- Here’s a sweet, short video that explains ’empathy’ to your little one (thanks Sesame Street).
Do
Core Marbles
- Encourage your child to talk about and name their feelings
- Point out other people’s behavior and feelings
- Point out when someone shows (or doesn’t show) empathy
- Talk to your child about your feelings. Empathize with them
- Model empathy
- Use empathetic language
- Teach nonverbal cues
10 Ways to Teach Empathy
- Talk about and name feelings – Before our children can recognize emotions in other people, they need to understand their own. Help your child validate and name all of their feelings.
- Younger children: Happy, sad, angry, scared.
- Older children: Frustrated, disappointed, bored, silly, embarrassed.
Children need to learn to self-regulate and trust that they can feel and handle any emotion they experience. Avoid saying to your child, “Don’t be sad. It’s no big deal; you shouldn’t be angry about this.” Let children feel their feelings.
- Point out other people’s behavior and feelings – Especially for young children, it’s helpful to point out and label how others are feeling. For example:
- “Max is feeling sad because you took his book from him. Please hand it back and wait until he’s finished.”
- “Your sister is very tired and is having a hard time staying calm. Maybe a big brother hug would help.”
- Here’s a free printable empathy game to practice stepping into someone else’s shoes.
- Point out when someone shows (or doesn’t show) empathy – For example:
- “You were sad after your nap, and your brother brought you your lovey to make you feel better.”
- “That friend over there fell down and no one near her asked if she was okay.”
- Talk to your child about your feelings. Empathize with them – Show your child that adults have emotions too, and learning how to handle them is part of life. For example,
- “I feel sad when you hit me. I’d like you to use your words to tell me what you want.”
- “It looked like you were frustrated when you couldn’t play with that toy. I understand. I feel frustrated too when I have to wait for my turn.”
- Model empathy – Children are astute observers and will notice how you treat others.
- Children learn empathy by watching your every move. As you treat others with respect and compassion, your child will do the same.
- Help your child reframe a situation to practice understanding how feelings impact behavior.
- “You said she is mean. Do you think she might be tired or hungry? How do you feel when you are tired and hungry?”
- Use empathetic language – Language choice is important. Teach your child the *THINK* framework to consider the impact of their words (vs. their intent). Be mindful of labeling and describing others in a way that is shaming and judgmental when you talk to your child. For example:
- “She’s having a hard time sharing her toys today” is more empathetic than “She’s being selfish.”
- “Excluding friends from a conversation hurts their feelings” is more helpful than “That person is being mean.”
- Teach nonverbal cues – Observe other people’s mannerisms and facial expressions, and talk about how they might be feeling. For example:
- “That little boy is sitting on the swing and dragging his feet. How do you think he is feeling?”
- Playing a game where you guess how someone is feeling and explaining your thinking helps strengthen your child’s ability to pick up on nonverbal signs and infer feelings and thoughts.
- Use books and media (TV shows) to practice talking about empathy – Simply pausing to ask your child how they think a character is feeling or behaving is powerful.
- Daniel Tiger, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Stinky Tales are consistent favorites among educators, parents and kids.
- Provide opportunities for children to practice empathy and their world view – Involving children in community engagement (to care for different kinds of people who face different challenges) teaches children the value of compassion. Visiting homebound elders or volunteering at a food bank can expand your child’s world view. Be sure to check your local resources for such opportunities (usually appropriate after age 4).
- Help children identify similarities between people – Studies suggest that we feel more empathy for people we sense are familiar or similar to us. Help your child see the commonalities between themselves and others, especially others who face challenges or tragedy, and they will be more likely to act with empathy.