Teaching Empathy

Teaching empathy is a lesson often overlooked by parents and youth workers.  Empathy comes up quite often in my work with middle school and high school students but the root of the issue can be addressed with much younger children.

This month has seen several heart breaking stories of the "by stander effect" in the news and it keeps me coming back to the issue of teaching empathy.   Although many people believe empathy is an innate trait it is truly a learned emotion.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/26/understanding-the-bystander-effect

So for parents and youth workers alike, here are some great tips for fostering empathy.

Use every day situations to ask questions
When a situation occurs that your child shares with you or that you witness together...

• How would that situation have made you feel?
• Can you imagine what that felt like for that person?
• What would you have wanted some one to say or do if that had been you?

Teach acceptance of others
Teaching children to accept any difference in other people builds the foundation  for caring about people no matter how different they might seem or appear.   When children point out differences between people (as they so often do) acknowledge  it and continue the conversation.  Encouraging a child to continue the conversation by guiding it to what they might have in common is one approach.  With older children, encourage them to think about how someone may view them as different and what that means to them.

Be mindful of asking questions so that children form their own answers and develop a more personal understanding.

Here is an excellent site on teaching empathy.  Check it out!  
http://www.parentingscience.com/teaching-empathy-tips.html