Development of empathy in childhood
How Children Develop Empathy | Psychology Today
“My 3-year-old doesn’t seem very empathetic. Does this mean something is wrong?”
“Someone told me that kids can’t 'do' empathy until age 9. Is that true?”
These are examples of the types of questions parents often send us. There is good reason for confusion around the topic of empathy. While it is clear that empathy is important for the development of healthy social relationships and character traits like caring and kindness, it isn’t necessarily something that your child “has” or “doesn’t have” by a certain age. There isn’t a clear set of checkboxes you can mark or a definitive test you can take to make sure your child is on track to develop empathy.
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Indeed, observing a preschooler closely—especially with an eye out for more “grown-up” versions of empathetic responses—can be a bit disconcerting. Of course, there are times when empathy can show up in unmistakable ways. Just last week, I was touched when my son’s preschool teacher emailed me a picture of him offering a hug to a little girl in his class who was having a hard time. “There it is!” I thought proudly. “Empathy!” This warm glow cooled significantly just a few hours later when this same little angel watched his brother topple head over heels on the sidewalk. When we pointed out that the giant tears streaming down his brother’s face told us his baby brother was sad and scared, my older child responded by running in circles with his hands over his ears chanting, “That’s funny!” over and over again.
If, however, you can get past your own parental horror and look closer, it is clear that in both instances my older son had an emotional response to another person’s distress. The roots of empathy start there. Knowing how to handle those big feelings and translate them into behaviors that can truly serve another person is a far more complex task, one that requires both maturation and practice.
Empathy means that a child:
- Understands that she is a distinct person from those around her and that other people may have different feelings and perspective than her own.
- Can recognize feelings in herself and others and name them.
- Can regulate her own emotional responses.
- Can put herself in someone else’s shoes and imagine how someone might feel.
- Can imagine what kind of action or response might help a person feel better.
That’s a lot of work. Empathy is a work-in-progress throughout childhood and adolescence and is shaped by a range of factors including genetics, temperament, context, and environment. Empathy does not, however, simply unfold automatically in children. While we are born hardwired with the capacity for empathy, its development requires experience and practice.
Emotional Foundations
Empathy is both an emotional and cognitive experience. The emotional components of empathy are the first to emerge. Babies begin reflecting the emotional states and expressions of those around them right away. Thanks to mirror neurons, infants as young as 18 hours old often show some responsiveness to other infants in distress.
We don’t teach babies how to do this; they are born hardwired to map the experiences of others in their brains and bodies.
Early emotional experiences between babies and their caregivers are crucial to the development of empathy. As caregivers nurture and care for infants, babies make crucial associations between positive human interactions, reward systems, and feelings of calm and safety. Children who feel safe, secure, and loved are eventually more sensitive to others' emotional needs. Psychologists call this connection between caregivers and babies “attachment” and research shows that quality of attachment is a predictor of empathy and compassion later in life.
Feeling and Thinking
As children get older, the cognitive components of empathy begin to emerge and complement the emotional templates they formed during the first years of life. By the preschool years, children become more aware that other people have separate bodies, feelings, and experiences.
They develop what is called a “theory of mind,” which enables them to engage in early “perspective taking,” a precursor to being able to stand in someone else’s shoes and care about what that feels like. The distinction between self and other matures quickly throughout early childhood. For example, if a one-year-old sees that a friend is upset he may go get his own mother to comfort him. A two-and-a-half-year-old in the same situation may get his friend’s mother because he now understands that his friend would want his own parent in a time of distress. Of course, these interactions are still in the very early stages of development and are limited to situations that toddlers have experienced themselves, guided by responses modeled by adults who care for them.
Cognitive components of empathy really come into their own by six or seven, when a child is more capable of taking another person's perspective and offering solutions or help when they notice someone in distress. As children's executive function skills mature and they become more capable of managing their own distress, they gain the "cognitive space" they need to connect with another person's experience without feeling totally overwhelmed themselves.
All of this practice is a foundation for the complex ethical and moral issues that young people begin to take on like bullying, inequality, or racism.
"Empathy is caught, not taught."
Of course, these skills and behaviors unfold differently for different children and depend upon context as well. A tentative preschooler who feels safe and secure halfway through the school year may be well poised to be an empathetic friend. The first day of school? Maybe not so much. But all of these moments are opportunities to create the conditions for empathy and plant seeds we hope will grow. We can’t sit our children down for formal lessons in empathy. Instead, empathetic responses emerge over time in the context of caring relationships, modeling, storytelling, communication, playing, emotion coaching, and a whole lot of patience. As Mary Gordon, the founder of Roots of Empathy, reminds us, “Empathy is caught, not taught.”
See our previous posts for tips on nurturing empathy throughout early childhood and into adolescence.
References
Mikulincer, M., Shaver, P. R., Gillath, O., & Nitzberg, R. A. (2005). Attachment, Caregiving, and Altruism: Boosting Attachment Security Increases Compassion and Helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(5), 817-839.
Astington JW, Dack LA. Theory of mind. In: Haith MM, Benson JB, eds. Encyclopedia of infant and early childhood development. Vol 3. San Diego, CA: Academic Press; 2008: 343-356.
Szalavitz, M., & Perry, B. D. (2010). Born for love: Why empathy is essential-- and endangered. New York: William Morrow.
Decety, Jean, and Kalina J. Michalska. "Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood." Developmental science 13.6 (2010): 886-899.
Findlay, Leanne C., Alberta Girardi, and Robert J. Coplan. "Links between empathy, social behavior, and social understanding in early childhood." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 21.3 (2006): 347-359.
Cox, C.
L., Uddin, L. Q., Di Martino, A., Castellanos, F. X., Milham, M. P., & Kelly, C. (2011). The balance between feeling and knowing: affective and cognitive empathy are reflected in the brain's intrinsic functional dynamics. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(6), 727–737. doi:10.1093/scan/nsr051
5 Tips for Cultivating Empathy — Making Caring Common
1. Empathize with your child and model empathy for others.Children learn empathy both from watching us and from experiencing our empathy for them. When we empathize with our children they develop trusting, secure attachments with us. Those attachments are key to their wanting to adopt our values and to model our behavior, and therefore to building their empathy for others.
Empathizing with our children takes many forms, including tuning in to their physical and emotional needs, understanding and respecting their individual personalities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, and guiding them toward activities that reflect an understanding of the kind of people they are and the things they enjoy.
Children also learn empathy by watching those we notice and appreciate. They’ll notice if we treat a server in a restaurant or a mail carrier as if they’re invisible. On the positive side, they’ll notice if we welcome a new family in our child’s school or express concern about another child in our child’s class who is experiencing one challenge or another.
Finally, it’s important for us to recognize what might be getting in the way of our empathizing. Are we, for example, exhausted or stressed? Does our child push our buttons in a specific way that makes caring for her or him hard at times?
Try thisKnow your child. Ask your child questions. For example, what did you learn today that was interesting? What was the hardest part of your day? How would you most like to spend a day if you could do anything? Do you have a friend that you especially respect? Why do your respect that person?
Demonstrate empathy for others, including those different from you.
Consider regularly engaging in community service or model other ways of contributing to a community. Even better, consider doing this with your child. Express interest in those from various backgrounds facing many different types of challenges.Engage in self-care and self-reflection. Try to find time to regularly engage in an activity—whether it’s going for a walk, reading a book, meditating or praying—that can help you avoid being overwhelmed by stress. Reflect and consult with people you trust when you’re having a hard time empathizing with your child.
If children are to value others’ perspectives and show compassion for them, it’s very important that they hear from their parents that caring about others is a top priority, and that it is just as important as their own happiness. Even though most parents say that raising caring children is a top priority, often children aren't hearing that message.
Keep to a clear message. Consider the daily messages you send to children about the importance of caring. For example, instead of saying “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” you might say “The most important thing is that you’re kind and that you’re happy.”
Prioritize caring when you talk with other important adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers and coaches whether your children are caring community members in addition to asking about their academic skills, grades, or performance.
Help your children understand that the world doesn't revolve around them. It’s vital at times for parents to put children’s concern for others above their happiness, for example, insisting at times that children turn off the TV and help around the house, be polite even when they are in a bad mood, or not dominate the airwaves when they are talking to other children or adults.
Children are born with the capacity for empathy, but it needs to be nurtured throughout their lives. Learning empathy is in certain respects like learning a language or a sport. It requires practice and guidance. Regularly considering other people’s perspectives and circumstances helps make empathy a natural reflex and, through trial and error, helps children get better at tuning into others’ feelings and perspectives.
Try thisHave family meetings. Hold family meetings when there are family challenges or conflicts, and in those meetings give children a voice and encourage them to take the perspective of other family members. Listen carefully to your children’s views and ask your children to listen carefully to the views of others.
Encourage empathy for peers. Ask children about their classmates and other peers.
Ask children when they’re in conflicts with peers to consider their peers’ perspectives.Reflect on empathy and caring. Notice with your child when you’re together and someone exhibits strong empathy—or shows a lack of empathy—either in your daily life or in a book or on television. Discuss why acts of empathy are important and why lacking empathy can be harmful.
Discuss ethical dilemmas. Discuss with your child ethical dilemmas that help them appreciate various perspectives, e.g., “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn't like her?” “Should I tell my friend if I know her boyfriend, who is also my friend, cheated on her?”
Support doing with. Encourage children not just to do service, to “do for” others, but to “do with” others, working with diverse groups of students to respond to community problems.
Proper development of empathy in children
The meaning of the word "empathy" is very broad.
Some adults don't know how empathy works. They believe that this designation is only compassion or kindness. But it is also a conscious empathy for the state of another person.
Empaths are positive, good listeners, non-judgemental, and make friends easily.
Employees of educational institutions, kindergartens and schools do not have the task of instilling kindness and care for their neighbor in children. The development of empathy in a child is the responsibility of the parents.
Every day we are in contact with a large number of people: they can be consultants in shops, minibus drivers, work colleagues, next of kin - we enter into communication with everyone, and our mood, and, consequently, our life depends on its quality .
People who know how to feel the internal state of the interlocutor easily tune in to his wave, adapt to the situation and behave correctly. If necessary and desired, an adult can learn the art of empathy, but in childhood this quality is easier to learn.
Why is it important to develop empathy in a child?
Psychologists say that empathy should be nurtured, because this quality affects the development of children. Empathy is the main life skill on which the development of intelligence, social adaptation and spiritual qualities are based.
Scientists studied the level of empathy in children and came to the conclusion that successful students with leadership qualities have a high level of empathy.
Distinctive features of empaths are attentiveness and understanding of the situation, the ability to avoid conflicts. It helps children to be successful at home and at school, achieve good academic results, communicate easily with peers, and build stable relationships in adulthood.
Parents should develop empathy in their child, because it provides many benefits:
- a positive attitude towards life;
- lack of inclination to condemn others;
- increased attentiveness to people and from people;
- ability to hear and listen;
- excellent communication skills;
- close contact with peers;
- formation of emotional intelligence;
- orientation towards adulthood.
The spiritual and intellectual nature of the child develops thanks to empathy, it contributes to the fact that the baby positively adapts to society.
Empathy is important to develop because every day we communicate with many people who influence our lives. These are all those with whom we are in direct contact: family members, colleagues, classmates at school, comrades in the sports section, the bus conductor and just acquaintances. The easier a preschool child will feel the mood and emotions of others, the easier it will be for him to live.
Empathy at different ages
Features of empathy in each child at each age are different.
Young children (from birth to 4 years) begin to analyze their mood. They try to understand how they feel. Therefore, at an elementary level, he can understand and anticipate the emotions of others. The baby will cry loudly if he hears the cry of another. As experts say, he will "emotionally become infected.
" After the baby began to speak and master the world around him, it can be assumed that he had some kind of intuition for the feelings of others. He understands when parents are happy or upset.
Children of senior preschool age (4-7 years old) actively show empathy for the people around them. Even if the baby does not know how to properly console a friend who is ashamed, or how to properly respond to his happy event, he will still empathize with him.
Children of primary school age (7-9 years old) can not only understand and appreciate the state of mind of a friend or parents, but also support, comfort with a word, help with advice. They are sympathetic to people who are dear to them.
The Japanese believe that children can be brought up only up to three years, and then only to correct their behavior. For them, 10 years is already early adolescence. Therefore, they are sure that until this time it is necessary to develop empathy in the baby, otherwise he will grow up as an egoist.
Building empathy in children
Parents are wondering how to develop empathy in a child. Empathy in children develops through play and reading fairy tales. Ask the child what the wolf felt when he sat at the hole and caught a fish with his tail, what did the fox think? What qualities of character distinguish Dr. Aibolit and his sister? Share your emotions with your child, tell how happy you are in anticipation of the upcoming vacation or why you feel sad on a rainy day.
Get in the habit of dealing with all situations, especially conflicts, at the level of emotions: “You had a fight with Petya, tell me how you felt about it? Resentment, hatred, resentment? How do you think Petya felt? While walking, guess the mood of people passing by by gait and facial expression. Connect your imagination and you will see how exciting this activity is.
According to psychologists, the development of emotional intelligence is impossible without empathy. With the help of emotional intelligence, we understand and can explain our own emotions and experiences, as well as understand the feelings of others.
Highly developed emotional intelligence allows us to better understand ourselves and others, to be reliable friends, good listeners and mentors.
Developing empathy with animals
Pets help develop empathy in children. Pay attention to how the baby communicates with the pet. If this is aggressive behavior, explain that you can’t do this, encourage affectionate communication.
Children treat pets like family members and take care of them. Children develop a sense of responsibility and attention to their neighbor, in a word, high emotional intelligence. The empathy of preschoolers is most clearly manifested through the care of a pet.
If the child is cruel to animals, offer him a game. Let him imagine himself as some kind of animal and try to feel what would happen to him if he were mistreated. For example: “Pasha, imagine that you are a cat. You have a beautiful and fluffy tail that you really like. And then a worthless boy comes up and pulls you by the tail.
What do you feel? You must be in pain? Unpleasant? Do you want the boy to let you go?"
Psychologists say that empathy is a very necessary quality. If you develop it from an early age, then in the future it can develop into a superpower - reading emotional information, which allows you to move to a completely different level of communication.
How to develop empathy in a child, what is empathy and how important is empathy for children
What is empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of another person. Its manifestation does not mean at all that the empath will certainly help another in trouble. Empathy is most often about the level of understanding of feelings and emotions, rather than specific actions.
Psychologists distinguish three types of empathy.
Cognitive empathy. We make sense of other people's feelings through data analysis and processing: for example, we draw parallels with fiction and cinema.
The character in The Catcher in the Rye felt like this in such and such a situation, and I sympathize with my friend, because I understand that he now feels the same way.
Emotional empathy. We make sense of the feelings of others by associating them with our experience. For example, we understand that a person is feeling bad now, because they themselves were in a similar situation.
Effective empathy. We not only comprehend the feelings of others, but also move on to actions: for example, we offer a person specific help.
How to understand if a child has enough empathy
Empathy is not an innate ability, but a consequence of upbringing. Its foundations must be laid at an early age.
Even then, parents can observe the difference between a child prone to empathy and a child to whom empathy is alien: the former is able to pity someone and sympathize, while the latter will remain indifferent or even gloat.
By age 3-4, children should be able to respond to other people's feelings and show empathy.
If a five-year-old does not have enough empathy - for example, laughs when a peer is hurt - this is an alarm signal for parents. Here are a few ways to tell if a child has empathy.
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The child picks up the emotions of others and reacts correctly. For example, reads when mom came home from work in a bad mood - even if mom does not say anything - and asks: “Mom, something happened?”, “Mom, are you sad?”.
The child is not selfish . For example, he can make a compromise when playing on the playground: let the younger kid swing first on the swing.
The child empathizes with characters in fairy tales and cartoons. If a son or daughter cries while watching Monsters, Inc. or reading the children's novel No Family, this means that he has a high level of empathy.
Source: freepik.com / @freepic-dillerHow to purposefully develop empathy
If you are afraid that your child lacks emotional responsiveness and the ability to empathize with others, this skill can and should be developed.
1. Pay attention to other people's feelings
Invite your child to feel sorry for someone who is feeling bad. For example, on the playground, a boy fell down a hill and was crying. You can approach and feel sorry for him, offer help. If you see that the boy is already being helped, you can limit yourself to a discussion with the child: “Look, you have fallen. Poor guy, he's in pain. Well, nothing, his grandmother will regret it, and everything will pass. If the child offended someone, you should not just demand “apologize immediately”, but describe in detail the feelings of the one who was offended.
It is not necessary to look for live situations. Focus on someone's feelings when you play with your child. For example: “My doll bought a balloon, and it accidentally flew into the sky. She is sad." Come up with situations and discuss with the child - how does the hero feel? What is it like for him? Can we help?
2. Be an example
The upbringing and education of children is based on the repetition of the actions and reactions of a teaching, significant adult.
Don't hide your feelings when you feel bad - talk openly about them.
Show empathy towards the child, even if his problems seem far-fetched - for example, in the sandbox he did not share a bucket with someone. If you are sensitive to the emotional state of the child, he will adopt it. Important: never tell your child how he “should” feel right now.
One must be able to cope with even the most difficult emotional state of a son or daughter, regardless of their age. Don't laugh or make fun of your child's negative emotions. Such emotions are an opportunity for rapprochement. As a rule, children who could easily trust adults in childhood felt secure, received support and affection at the right moments - there are no problems with empathy.
3. Socialize
Social connections are important at any age - this is how a child learns to get along with others. The more contact a child has with peers, the easier it is for him to learn empathy. Team games accelerate the emotional and cognitive development of the child.
Interacting with others, the child receives a lot of empathic experiences, learns to put himself in the place of others, to help and find help in difficult times.
You can offer your child to organize joint activities with peers. There are games that specifically develop empathy.
"Transmission of feelings". An adult presenter chooses a child and suggests in his ear what mood to think of. The child chain conveys this mood - with the help of facial expressions, gestures, touches. Each next child guesses what mood they are talking about and thinks out how to pass it on to the next in the chain. When the circle closes, you need to discuss what kind of mood was intended.
Quiet conversation. An adult facilitator whispers a phrase into the child's ear. All children sit in a circle. The task of the child is to non-verbally say this phrase to the others. Children guess what exactly this phrase is.
Heroes' emotions.
An adult leader reads a story or fairy tale to the children. Children are given symbolic cards with images of different moods in advance. In the process of reading, the children correlate the cards with the emotional state of the hero of the work and explain their choice.
4. Discuss emotions
Ask the child how he feels at the moment. But the younger the child, the more difficult it is for him to recognize his emotions. Children do not know how to determine whether they are sad now or they are angry - as long as their parents do not teach them to distinguish one from the other.
Speak out the emotions of your son or daughter: “You are now angry because...”, “You are upset because of...”, “So-and-so offended you...”. When a child recognizes his own emotions, it is easier to understand others.
When talking about your own emotions, use the "I-statement": "I feel like this", "I feel like this right now." Do not shift the responsibility for your emotions to the child: “You are such and such, you brought me!”.
