Now Is the Right Time!
As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship while growing empathy in your child so that they can work to develop healthy relationships and prepare for future success in school and life.
Empathy means the ability to take the perspective of and interpret the thoughts and feelings of others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. It directly relates to their developing social awareness, a critical skill for relating to others, understanding social and ethical behavior norms, and recognizing family, school, and community resources and supports. “Empathy can be instilled, and it is composed of teachable habits that can be developed, practiced, and lived.” 1
Three- and four-year-olds better understand themselves through interactions with you and other caregivers. They are in the process of learning their strengths and limitations, why they feel the way they do, and how they relate to others. Parents and those in a parenting role share in this learning and exploration.
Three- and four-year-olds also grow their ability to imagine how others may feel and respond with care. Your child’s ability to show empathy is critical to getting along and playing with others collaboratively. This is a vital time to teach and practice empathy. The steps below include specific, practical strategies to prepare you.
Why Empathy?
Your child’s secure and trusting connection with you is pivotal to their emerging empathy for others. You can support their growing empathy as you interact and share love and conversation.
Today, in the short term, building empathy can create
- more significant opportunities for connection, cooperation, and enjoyment
- feelings of safety and security
- greater ability to develop friendships and play with other children cooperatively
- a sense of well-being and motivation to engage
Tomorrow, in the longer term, growing empathy in your child
- prepares them for preschool and kindergarten
- deepens engagement and motivation for reading, including feeling the emotions of the characters and connecting with them
- develops the ability to share and take turns with adults and other children
- builds skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making
- deepens family trust and intimacy
Five Steps for Building Empathy
This five-step process helps you and your child build empathy and essential life skills. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).
Tip: These steps are best done when you and your child are not tired or in a rush.
Step 1 Get Your Child Thinking by Getting Their Input
Children, ages three to four, are highly active and exploratory, seeking moments for imaginative play. They now can view themselves as a whole person with a body, mind, and spirit but are still learning to identify their big
feelings. Your child is gaining skills and ability in cooperating with others and working through conflict with pretend play. Your efforts to learn from your child will create empathetic interactions that promote empathy in both of you. In becoming sensitive to your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you
- are responding to their needs
- are growing their trust in you and their sense of healthy relationships
- are growing motivation for you and your child to work together
- are deepening your ability to communicate with one another
- are growing your own and their self-control (to calm down when upset and focus their attention)
- are growing empathy and problem-solving skills
Actions
- Each time there is an opportunity, ask your child, “How do you feel? How do you think the other child feels?”
- For example, if your child is with others expressing emotion, help your child notice cues from other children’s faces and body language. For example, “Her face is frowning. Do you think she’s feeling sad?”
- When reading books, look at the images of children or animals and guess the feelings by asking, “What do you think that character is thinking?” and “What do you think that character is feeling?”
- If your child is unsure about how others are feeling or is buried in their feelings, ask questions to help them. You could say,
- “What do you notice the other child is feeling?”
- “How do you know from their facial expression?”
- “What does their voice sound like? How are they moving?”
- Practicing naming feelings will enable your child to identify their feelings and others and seek support when needed.
Three- and four-year-olds are learning to play with others and develop friendships. Your ability to guide them in becoming sensitive to others’ thoughts and feelings will give them the skills and confidence to forge new relationships and play cooperatively. Learning about
developmental milestones can help you better understand what your child is working hard to learn. Here are some examples:
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- Three-four-year-olds are beginning to realize that their body, thoughts, and feelings are their own.
- Three-four-year-olds are growing in their imagination and allowing it to drive their play. They may take on an imaginary friend or fear imagined monsters or dangers.
- Three-four-year-olds find that they can create more interesting pretend play by cooperating and negotiating with other children.
- Three-four-year-olds talk in five- to six-word sentences, tell stories, and speak in ways others can understand.
- Three-four-year-olds develop a curiosity about bodies – their own and others.
Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.
Actions
- Model empathy while interacting with your child. Modeling empathy can be one of the greatest teaching tools.
- Share the focus. As you spend time with your child, follow their lead. As they pick up new toys or explore a different part of the room, notice and name what they are exploring. 3
- Notice gestures and listen for thoughts and feelings. Attempt to figure out what your child is trying to tell you. Name it When they express a feeling on their face or through their body. “I noticed your face is red, and you are frowning. You look angry. Is that right?”
- Children require your attention to thrive. Try to build a special time into your routine when you are fully present to listen to what your child has to tell you. Turn off your phone. Set a timer if needed. Then, notice your body language. Ask yourself, “What is my body communicating, and how am I demonstrating that I’m listening?”
- Read and “pretend play” together.
- Use reading time, for example, and select a book of faces to help your child identify the different feelings of other children. Point out how you can tell each child’s feelings and practice recreating those cues with your child.
- After reading a story together, act out the plot and use feeling words and expressions to match how the characters feel throughout the story. This will help them expand their feeling vocabulary and learn to recognize a wide range of perspectives and feelings they might not encounter in daily interactions with others.
- Make your thinking and feelings explicit. Talk about how you feel, why, and what signs you give, even when uncomfortable. “I am sad because I just dropped my special cup, which broke. Can you tell? My face is frowning.”
- Talk aloud about how you respond to your big feelings. “I’m going to take a few deep breaths before trying again. That will help me.”
- Develop empathetic thinking. For example, when your child points a blaming finger, saying “He did it!” you may respond with:
- “What do you think he’s feeling?”
- “What choice would you make if you were sad or hurt?”
- “What do you think could make him feel better?”
Trap: Don’t tell your child what they feel; ask instead. Three-—to four-year-olds strive for independence and may push back if you are too direct about their thoughts and feelings. You might say, “You look sad. Is that right?”
Step 3 Practice to Grow Skills and Develop Habits
If you seize the opportunities in your daily routines, you and your child can practice new vital skills. Practice provides essential opportunities to grow empathy as your child interacts with you and others. Practice also grows vital new brain connections that strengthen and eventually form habits.
Actions
- Set the rule or expectation in your household: Having feelings is always okay! This will help each family member feel safe expressing what they are feeling. What you do with those feelings is the important next step in determining whether you take responsibility for your emotions and actions so that you do not harm yourself or others.
- Whenever you see another child become emotional, use it as an opportunity to figure out the feeling together. “What do you think he’s feeling now? Why do you think that?”
- Read together. When you read stories together, you engage in an activity that can be deeply connecting for both of you. Be sure to involve your child in selecting the book they want to read. Involve your child in holding the book, turning pages, and predicting what will come next. Hold onto a page before turning it and ask, “What do you think will happen next?” Reflect on the story, and you’ll take the learning opportunity one step further. “Do you think the character was sad that he spilled his milk?”
- Play games to practice feelings. Playing games like Going on a Bear Hunt allows you and your child to try on different feelings and practice the facial expressions, tone of voice, and movements that might match those feelings. For example, when you are running from the bear, you feel scared and move fast. You might have your eyes widened, and you might even be screaming. Learning those feelings when having fun allows for your full attention rather than being distracted by your heightened feelings.
- Involve the whole family and create guessing games at dinner or when you are playing together. Have Daddy make an emotional face. Take turns guessing what Daddy is feeling. Remember that your child actively tries to determine other people’s feelings and reactions. Join in the excitement of discovering other’s thoughts and feelings, and your child will remain curious and learn even when you are not present.
- Initially, the practice may require more teaching. However, only take over and tell your child what others are thinking and feeling while allowing them the practice of guessing.
Trap: Avoid judging other children who hurt your child with words or actions. Most often, you may not know the whole story of the child lashing out, but you do know one thing for sure – that child is hurting. First, listen to the feelings of your child and express care. Then, express that it’s impossible to see the whole picture. “Children tend to say hurtful words when they are also hurting. Do you know why they might be hurting?” Prompt, compassionate thinking. Then, coach your child on how to respond in ways that do not harm self or another. “Next time, could you move away or ask them to stop? Good. Let’s practice.”
Step 4 Support Your Child’s Development and Success
At this point, you have been developing your child’s empathy skills and allowing them to practice. You can offer support when needed by reteaching, monitoring, and coaching. Parents and those in a parenting role naturally provide support as they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.
By providing support, you reinforce their ability to think and feel empathetically to grow their relationships and cooperate with others.
Actions
- Initially, your child may need active support to encourage empathy. Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity. And ask them to demonstrate empathy. For example, you could say, “Show me how you can help your friend who is crying.”
- Recognize effort using “I notice” statements like: “I noticed how you saw she was sad and gave her one of your toys to help her feel better. That was kind of you.”
- On days with extra challenges, when you can see your child is frustrated or feeling incapable, proactively remind your child of their strength. In a gentle, non-public way, you can whisper in your child’s ear, “Remember how you hugged your sister to feel better the other day? How could you do the same for your brother, who is having a hard day today?”
- Actively reflect on how your child feels when approaching challenges. You can ask questions like:
- “How are you feeling at playtime?” Offering a chance to talk gives insight into your child’s social challenges.
- “It seems like you got frustrated with your turn-taking and stopped playing. Is that right? Did it help you feel better?” Be sure to reflect on the outcomes of their choices.
Trap: Don’t fix problems between your child and another. You could be taking away valuable learning for your child. Instead, ask them questions about how they can meet their own needs (“Could you hug a teddy bear and then go back to playing?”) and how they can understand each other’s feelings and start to feel better.
No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.
If your infant is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your infant’s confidence. Your recognition also encourages safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.
There are many ways to reinforce your infant’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.
Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your infant. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “I noticed you were sharing your toys with your sister. I love seeing you smile. Those sounds make me smile, too.” Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a smile.
Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job. A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect. It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment. A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.
Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent or someone in a parenting role offers to buy a sucker if the child stops the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.
Trap: It can be easy to resort to bribes when recognition and occasional rewards are underutilized. If parents or those in a parenting role frequently resort to bribes, it is likely time to revisit the
five-step process.
Trap: Think about what behavior a bribe may unintentionally reinforce. For example, offering a sucker if a child stops a tantrum in the grocery store checkout line may teach the child that future tantrums lead to additional treats.
Actions
- Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice.
- Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
- Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after completing your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed.
Closing
Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.
