Purposeful Parenting LLC
Empathy begins to develop when children are very young. Children begin to realize someone else feelings differ from their own and become aware that they are separate from others. Advance empathy emerges when children can understand distress in others beyond the immediate situation.
HOW CAN PARENTS HELP THEIR CHILDREN DEVELOP EMPATHY?
These are several ways parents can help their children develop a sense of empathy:
1. Use discipline techniques.
Hitting, Spanking, Belittling, and Criticizing, are all roadblocks to developing empathy.
2. Teach children to express their feelings.
Children have the right to express how they feel.
3. Identify and honor your children's feelings.
When children express an emotion, identify and honor their feeling.
4. Model empathy.
When parents model empathy, they are teaching their children the caring way to react when someone else is distressed.
5. Develop family morals.
Teach children that certain behaviors are morally right and wrong.
6. Teach children responsibility.
Nothing is as powerful as empathy in learning how to behave. The goal is to have children think ahead to what reaction could occur if they choose to perform a certain behavior.
7. Develop family rules.
Parents who care, teach children to care.
8. Do unto others.
Treat your children and others, regardless of their age or abilities. The way you would like to be treated. Modeling empathy is a very powerful way to teach empathy to children.
ALWAYS REMEMBER!
"Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another" - Alfred Adler
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