3 Ways to Teach Empathy to Your Child

How do you know what to do when a friend is sad or frustrated? Chances are, you think about a time when you felt that way and then from there are more understanding of what your friend is feeling and what they might need. But grasping how someone else might be feeling and what to do when they feel that way isn’t always an innate skill, it’s learned. And it’s an important lesson we can weave into the day-to-day with our kids to ensure they thrive socially in the world. There would certainly be a lot less bullying if more kids understood empathy at an earlier age.

Here are just a few ways to teach empathy to your child and start creating a foundation, whether your child is one or 15:

Talk openly about your emotions with your child

Remember when your child was a baby and experts said to talk to your baby about everything you were doing all day long? Keep doing it. Describe your own emotions when your child is around and you encounter things that make you frustrated, sad, glad, or laugh. Explain why these emotions are coming up. By listening to you kindly explain how you’re feeling, your child will learn about an important empathy tool — listening to others. They’ll also get a chance to see the body language or facial expressions you may make when you’re feeling those emotions so that they have other associations or cues for the type of empathy that’s needed.

Encourage your child to talk openly about emotions

Allow your child to feel safe and supported when communicating their own emotions. Opening the dialogue about emotions helps kids to understand it’s OK to feel a range of things — it’s OK to cry, and it’s OK to not understand something new to you or feel frustrated. When you listen to your child express how they’re feeling, you’re demonstrating listening and empathy for them to experience first-hand while also reminding them that they don’t need to push their feelings down.

Demonstrate empathy

Create teaching moments from real life and point out to your child when someone is being empathetic toward you. Express how it makes you feel grateful or supported when they do that. Also, take time to point out when you are being empathetic to someone else and use that time to explain why you chose to use empathy and what went through your mind when trying to help. These explanations can be done in the moment or told as “how was your day?” stories later in the day if your child wasn’t with you when they happened. Kids copy what they see — whether it’s hugging their doll the way you hug them or signing to their stuffed animals the way you’ve sung them to sleep, so demonstrating this skill is extremely important. 

Guest post written by Shari Stamps, a NorCal mom and the founder of Navigating Parenthood. Learn more helpful tips for kiddos ages 0-5 at the FamSummit.