Developing Empathy

Do you have empathy? Do you understand how other people think and feel? Of course, you do! Each one of us is wired to connect with others. Empathy is part of what makes us fully human.

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Empathy is a skill. It is our ability to recognise and respond to the feelings of other people. Empathy is essential because it holds together our personal relationships and, as a result, our communities. If we don’t cultivate it, it won’t grow. It’s as simple as that. Empathy grows in empathetic conditions and is depleted in aggressive or harsh environments.

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When we develop empathy in our homes, we are doing more than building a strong child. We are building a nation of strong children! Empathy means that we ‘get’ other people, and other cultures.  It means that we understand how other people feel, think and act. We are therefore more likely to accept the beliefs and views of people whose lives are different to our own.

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How then do we ‘grow’ empathy in our homes? We connect. We learn about our children’s loves and fears, their passions and aversions. We play together. We laugh, chat, and visibly enjoy our time together. We share their joy and their pain, and we celebrate their successes.

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We develop our children’s emotional intelligence by accepting their loud, messy feelings, and allowing them to move through them to the peace on the other side. We label all of their feelings providing them with rich vocabulary to express all the different nuances of what they are feeling.

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We understand what vulnerability feels like. The power of the words, ‘Your face looks sad, would you like a hug?’ is immeasurable. A simple ‘You’re crying, and I think that means you’re feeling sad. I’m going to help you,’ changes your child’s brain activity. It moves the child from anxious and unrecognised to calm and acknowledged. Very young children don’t yet have the tools to cope with overwhelming feelings. Cortisol, the stress hormone, floods their system, and takes away their ability to think through the feeling. Remember your child’s tantrum on the supermarket floor?!

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Our job is to provide children with warm and loving support (co-regulation) so that they know a) what they are feeling and b) what to do with the feeling. This is the beginning of self-regulation, a two-decade journey for most of us. Through co-regulation, the roots of self-regulation set in, becoming a fertile ground for growing empathy.

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Planting empathy right in the centre of our homes is a smart move. Higher order capacities for feeling allow children to grow in self-awareness alongside an understanding of everyone around them.  In other words, ‘growing’ empathetic children promotes peace.

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It is as simple as that.