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Teaching Parents to Teach Compassion in Children
By understanding how to instill compassion in children, you will teach them how to feel the pain and feelings of others. The ability to empathize is necessary for a child: it enriches his inner world, and protects his parents from cold indifference in old age.
Tips for Parents to Develop Empathy in Your Child
The psychological term “empathy” is associated with the ability to empathize with people. This is one of the communication factors, without which it is impossible to build a full-fledged communication. A person who knows how to feel others is able to build sincere friendly relations, he has less resentment towards others.
To instill a sense of compassion in your child, read fairy tales.
Not everyone can experience empathy. You need to start working with this in stages, taking into account the age of the child:
- Infection. Up to 1 year old, the baby “reads” mother’s emotions, and later “returns” them to her.
- Compassion. At 2 years old, the baby is already getting acquainted with the emotions of children and adults. He does not yet separate himself from the outside world, therefore he perceives other people’s suffering as his own. For example, if the other is in pain, the child will cry. If mom shows how you can feel sorry for your grandmother or encourages you to pet the cat, the baby learns to be compassionate.
- The ability to understand the feelings of others. At 3-4 years old, the baby already separates himself from the outside world. He shares his feelings and the experiences of others. At this time, he can empathize with his family, for example, help a tired mother bring a book or give his grandmother glasses. However, at this age, the child is more concerned with his own feelings.
- Sympathy. The kid already understands the results of his and others’ actions. He is ready to help, but does not always understand how this can be done.
- Joy for another. By the age of 6-9, with the consistent actions of the parents, the child is open to help others. He seeks to help his comrades and does so according to the situation.
Altruism, as the highest stage of empathy, allows you to help people by sacrificing your interests.
Development of the emotional sphere of the child
Empathy is impossible without developing the baby’s emotions. To do this, you can use:
- joint games for recognizing emotions in pictures;
- playful expression of emotions with a voice, for example, laughing or crying;
- story games and analysis of fairy tales;
- depicting the emotions of animals;
- discussion of how the child and mother feel;
- discussing moral issues, such as why animals should not be tortured;
- education of an active life position.
The latter is due to caring about the suffering of others and helping them, for example, making houses for birds.
Empathy should be developed from childhood. An insensitive child will have communication problems and will not be able to adapt well in society.