What is Empathy?
Thought Leadership
By Raelynne Woo
Empathy is being able to recognize, understand and relate to the thoughts and feelings of others. It plays an important role in establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. Empathy involves experiencing another person’s point of view instead of your own, like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Empathy is important for a few reasons:
People begin to show empathy during infancy and this trait develops from childhood through adolescence. Babies can display signs of empathy before they are 18 months old, so how behavior is modeled in front of them is important from an early age. At Duck Duck Books, your child will be able to develop their empathy skills through our books. Our book I Am Me! features children of different backgrounds and ethnicities. This book can be one of many great ways to introduce empathy behaviors to your child.
Here are 5 tips to nurture empathy in your child:
-
Narrate your thoughts to your child - when playing with your infant, narrate your thoughts. It can be as simple as “I am excited to read this board book to you.” Even if your baby cannot talk yet, you are teaching them cues as to what is happening around them. When your child gets older they can use these cues to figure out how to respond to others.
-
Express feelings openly - tell your child how you are doing. Whether you have a good or bad day, sharing feelings with your child can help them learn how to respond to them. It can also encourage them to share their feelings with you as well.
-
Acknowledge your child’s feelings - show your child that you care about them no matter what feelings they express. If they are upset and cry, try not to dismiss it. Acknowledge why they are sad as this will make them feel heard and cared for.
-
Read books to your child - showing your child images and photos of people with different emotions is one way of modeling empathy. We find that children like to mimic the same expressions of the children in our book I Am Me!
-
Expand your circle - including your child in community events, volunteering, and other activities can expose your child to different people. Children who spend more time with those who are different from themselves tend to be more empathetic towards others.
Empathy is a skill that will set your child up for success as they interact with many people who are different from them. It is never too early to start modeling empathetic behaviors for your child. We hope that our books can help give your child a head start as we focus on multilingual and multicultural learning!
References:
Cox, S. (2022). “Building Empathy in Children.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/family-prep/202208/building-empathy-in-children
Matthews, D. (2019). “What Can You Do to Nurture Your Child’s Empathy?” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/going-beyond-intelligence/201911/what-can-you-do-nurture-your-child-s-empathy
Psychology Today. (n.d.). “Empathy.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/empathy
