Teach children empathy

Empathy is very important to increase kindness, compassion and love among us. Empathy strengthens our relationships. It also helps us to be self-conscious. Empathy helps to understand that there is a big tree in a small seed. So, for a peaceful and happy society teaching empathy is need of the hour

Empathy

When a person can understand and feel another person’s or other living being’s thoughts, emotions, feelings, hopes, actions etc., in simple words, that is called empathy of that person. It is an ability of a person to put himself in another person’s mental shoes. For example, empathy is, when we can feel the state of mind and stomach of a hungry person within us.

Empathy Vs Sympathy

Empathy and sympathy are not the same. Even though there is a relationship between the two, there is a difference between the two. Although both mean caring for others, empathy means heartfelt understanding emotions of the other persons. On the other hand, sympathy means maintaining an emotional distance. A man who shows empathy will give a hungry man to eat and tell him how painful it is to be hungry. But, a man who shows sympathy will only let him eat. He cannot feel the pain of a hungry stomach. That means sympathy is just showing pity towards the sufferer. Thus, it is clear that where there is ‘feelings’ is empathy and where there is only ‘action’ is sympathy.

How to teach empathy

Positive discipline: The child’s empathy depends on how parents discipline their children. We often see, when a child attacks another child the parents scold them. Scolding a child we cannot teach children show empathy. Instead of that parents should say like – ‘look, how much s/he is hurt because of you’ or ‘look, s/he is crying in pain’! This will help development of empathy in child’s mind. Likewise, parents should not ignore the emotions of their children. They should try to match their child’s emotion, for example, showing like crying when their children cry. They should express happiness their children play happily.

Think and write: Ask children to imagine a situation and write how they will help if they  meet a blind person on their way back to home from school.

Help the helpless: Together with your child try to help the helpless people whenever it is possible. It will give a real environment to show empathy. They will understand that ‘we’ should help those who are in need.

Show similarities:Children should be shown some similarities between individuals that can make the children emotionally aware. For instance, they should be told that we are all made of same flesh and blood, we all feel hungry, we all feel sad, etc.

Collaborative task: Children should be engaged in collaborative tasks. In such a collaborative activity children will discover themselves as a part of the whole rather than a single individual. Success or failure, whatever, will be collective experience for them. This collective experience will help them becoming empathetic.

Mindful meditation: Parents or teachers should teach their children mindful meditation. Neuroscientists have proved that mindful meditation helps strengthening the ‘insula’ part of our brain. And this insula part of the brain plays very important role in the development of empathy.

Conclusion

Empathy is very important to increase kindness, compassion and love among us. Empathy strengthens our relationships. It also helps us to be self-conscious. Empathy helps to understand that there is a big tree in a small seed. So, for a peaceful and happy society teaching empathy is need of the hour.

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