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5 Ways To Teach Our Children Empathy

In These Challenging Times This thoughtfully written article offers evidence-based strategies for building the capacity to understand and demonstrate empathy. Using headings like “develop your child’s empathy muscle” and “expand your child’s circle of concern beyond family and friends,” the author sorts suggestions into meaningful chunks. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/5-ways-to-teach-our-children-empathy-in-these-challenging-times/2020/05/04/a5670cda-895a-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

 

How To Help Your Child Develop Empathy

A terrific feature of this ZERO TO THREE article is the section on milestones in empathy, which highlights what it might be reasonable to expect from infants, young toddlers, and older toddlers. In addition, there are suggestions for nurturing empathy and examples of stories that can promote concepts related to empathy and feelings. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/5-how-to-help-your-child-develop-empathy

How Empathetic Are You? Take The Empathy Quiz To Find Out!

Research suggests that people differ in the extent to which they experience empathy. The 28-item Empathy Quiz is based on three scientifically validated scales that researchers have created to measure empathy. Take the quiz and you’ll receive your empathy score, along with feedback and tips for strengthening your empathy skills. I took it and found the results to be very informative. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quizzes/take_quiz/empathy

Tiny Teachers: Empathy Experiences To Break the Cycle of Violence

A teacher in Canada became concerned about alarming rates of domestic violence, child abuse, and neglect. She identified an absence of empathy as a common thread through the violence and decided to do something about it. She created Roots of Empathy, an award winning program that systematically builds empathy in young children. The secret? Babies. The “tiny teachers” are 2- to 4-month-olds who, along with a parent, visit early child-hood programs throughout the year. Trained instructors guide participating children in watching and deciphering how the babies communicate what they need or want to their parents, and how the parents respond. The child-ren learn to articulate and label the emotions of the baby, their own emotions, and to recognize those emotions in others. Read more at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00094056.2020.1733858?needAccess=true

These Kids Do NOT Like This Lemonade  

Watch this delightful video to see how children’s empathy is put to the test when they are asked to try some lemonade spiked with salt. The experiment reveals some interesting differences in empathy between boys and girls. Watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD9-jnLD4lY

Teaching Empathy To Children Starts With Us

In 2014, a report from Harvard’s Making Caring Common project revealed that nearly 80% of youth surveyed ranked achievement and happiness above helping others. The same publication shared that nearly 80% of youth report that their parents are more concerned with achievement and happiness than helping others. This article highlights examples of what families can do, starting in early childhood, to close that rhetoric/reality gap. Access the article at https://sparkandstitchinstitute.com/teaching-empathy-to-kids/ and the report at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b7c56e255b02c683659fe43/t/5bae774424a694b5feb2b05f/1538160453604/report-children-raise.pdf

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