How To Teach Your Child Empathy

It may sound strange, but you need to teach your child empathy alongside other skills like reading and writing. Good academic performance will make them good students, but empathy and kindness will make them good human beings.

You can use several techniques to teach empathy to your little one. It’s also important that the daycare or school they go to teaches them to be more empathetic. Here’s how you can help them become more kind and empathetic in life.

Acknowledge Their Emotions and Feelings

If your child is feeling sad, lonely, or depressed, or just scared, it’s important for you to acknowledge their feelings. Ask them what’s making them feel this way. Is a barking dog scaring them? Empathize with your child and tell them it’s alright to feel scared in such a case. Later, you can help them move away from this stressor.

Acknowledging their emotions and feelings will help them learn empathetic behavior and be more kind to others.

Be a Role Model

You can lecture your child about being kind as much as you can, but if you don’t practice kindness, your child will not learn it. Research shows that during early childhood, children mimic what they see. So if your child sees you being kind to others, they will follow suit.

A good strategy is to play “acts of kindness” with your child. Make a list of 5-10 acts of kindness that you and your child would do each day. This can include:

• Holding the door open for someone
• Doing a chore for the other parent
• Picking up litter
• Asking another kid to join in play

The list is endless, and you can get more ideas here.

Praise Their Behavior

Praise is a highly effective tool for teaching children anything. In fact, psychologists recommend that teachers and parents should praise desirable behavior whenever they can instead of punishing undesirable behavior.

So whenever you observe your child being empathetic, praise them and encourage their behavior.

Your child’s early years are crucial to their development. Make sure you’re providing them with the right kind of education.

At Whole Child Development Center in Lenexa, Kansas, we provide a holistic and inclusive learning environment that fuels your child’s growth. Being a child care center that operates on the philosophy of famous psychologists like Piaget and Erikson, we incorporate play and psychological tools for best learning outcomes.

If you’re looking for affordable child care, get in touch with us today.