Why Empathy is the foundational skill for every child to learn!
Empathy makes the world far more peaceful, joyable, better & collaborative place to live. And more importantly make us a better human being. Amazingly, this soft skill is not taught well enough. Even adults lag behind in developing a crucial skill such as this. But we need to change this status quo
Empathy & Compassion lays the foundation of strong interpersonal relationships, self awareness, societal dealings & good negotiations ability. It makes us much wiser, stronger & smarter, if we observe well.
Not confusing Empathy with Sympathy. Sympathy is not so good as one is prone to be emotionally gullible. But Empathy is powerful, if one understands its true meaning and learns to apply it well. Sympathy is surface level emotional attachment, and not the deeper understanding. Whereas, Empathy is a deeper understanding of the other person, wearing their shoes, seeing things from their eyes, and anticipating accordingly. It not only helps making cordial relations, but also to avoid any deceit by anyone.
What we can do at home, to start cultivating this very soft skill –
Use the phrase “I Empathize with you” – When you try to understand your children, or they try to share their feelings with you, do use this very phrase. That’s how children get to know it is called Empathy, and its meaning is understanding the other person better
When children don’t understand you or your feelings, make them sit to talk, or write a letter/message for them, asking them to be more empathetic towards you – The notion of empathy exists within us. We need to activate it. A lot many times, children do stuff where they do not recognise our feelings. That is the right opportunity. To make them clear about empathy, as well as for the required behavioral change. Let’s leave being parents for some time, and just be friends with them. Sit with them, and talk like friends, or just write a message for them to read, how their actions sometimes make you feel bad, and how they should think or understand you better. Children are anchored towards developing understanding, which gradually reflects in other social dealings as well
As parents, say “Sorry” or “Thank You” to your children from time to time – We create this habit. Sorry and Thank you are the starting point of traversing the empathy path. We being elders, a lot many times, don’t say these words to our children. When we say these to them, they feel good, understand that you are acknowledging their efforts or feelings, and so they start doing it with you or others. The main purpose is, to make them start acknowledging the efforts and developing understanding
Show them the disabilities, ask them what the person/animal might be feeling – They are made to feel others by doing this. Whenever you see some disabled person or animal, or voluntarily go to homes for disabled/differently abled, teach them empathy. Tell them to see the world from their eyes, and see what difficulties he/she must have been facing which we don’t. This is how they start developing that understanding of the other person
Demonstrate Love & Kindness – Let’s demonstrate them. Participate yourself in community food, tag them along in social service, help out a poor person or an animal by offering food & ask them to help you. That’s how their heart start showing the power it possesses
Make a deal. If they want them to be understood, ask them to understand others first – Let’s make it clear to them. And negotiate. Everybody wants them to be understood, but seldom wants to understand others. Ask children if they want their parents to acknowledge their feelings and do things for them, they should also empathize and understand feelings and state of their parents, help them out, support them and be considerate. Let’s not pamper them much.
Do an activity at home, where all members sit down, and share their emotions/feelings with others – Conduct this session regularly, maybe once in 2 weeks, where everybody gets the chance to speak and others get to listen to them. It solves dual purpose. First, of self awareness and understanding, and secondly, cultivating empathy/understanding for others. Children should be made part of these talks from early on. We often do not involve them considering them kids, but hello! That’s the right time for them to learn it for life.
Tell them, understanding others and Empathy is a Strength, a Power. Being mean, callous or selfish is a weakness – Repeat this teaching. Entrench it in their subconscious mind. Show empathy in a good light from an early age. Tell them how empathy will help them become wiser and a better person. Anchor them from an early age. Tell them not to have any likings or dislikings for others, or be rigid in perceptions. Just be empathetic. Ask them to understand perspectives of different people and not just stick to theirs. Using keywords like ‘Strength’ with empathy, and ‘Weakness’ with apathy, makes them choose the right thing
Promote holistic thinking & not impulsive one, using Empathy lens. – Give them hypothetical case studies or examples. For example – if your maid or servant is trying to eat something from your fridge or steal something to eat, instead of just shouting at him/her, scolding him/her, tagging him/her as thief, understand why he or she did that. Maybe he/she might be hungry. Maybe there is no one to make food for them at home. Maybe his/her children are hungry. We should counsel them, listen to them why they did that, what motivated them to do that, empathize and then show them the right path. Even then if they act same, then it is wrong with their attitude
Let’s tell them how Empathy is different from sympathy. We should empathize, but not sympathize. Sympathy is superficial. One just gets melted down emotionally in sympathy, with no true understanding of the other person. Sympathy is exploited by others. Empathy can’t be exploited. Empathy is being a smart human. For ex – beggars use our sympathy to get money from all people, and people give. They then use the money to drink alcohol or pay back the collection to their boss. Also, begging is making them poor, reducing their integrity & value and making them habitual of begging. They will never do hard work and earn, but very shamelessly ask everything from everyone with no gratitude. That’s how sympathy is bad, but empathy is not. In empathy, instead of giving them money, one can give them some food to eat or clothes to wear, or help him get a job if he willingly wants that and help him earn a good living, or even a piece of advice. That’s empathy that we understood their position, but we are not allowing ourselves get exploited by anyone
Empathy & Compassion can only make this world a far more beautiful place to live. And if the seed is sown early, nothing better!
