Can you teach empathy?

[Artechim]

And if it is something you can teach, how?

[Eenee]

I'm not sure I know the answer. But I found this

Teaching empathy: Evidence-based tips

[little_O]

I'd read an article about cultivating empathy and showing kindness and it had said this:

There are three main ways by which we can sharpen our sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others: by listening, by observing, and by imagining.

Listen. By listening carefully we learn what problems others face. And the better we listen, the more likely they are to open up their hearts and reveal their feelings.

Observe. Not everyone will openly tell us how they feel or what they are going through. A keen observer, however, will notice when a person seems depressed, when a teenager becomes uncommunicative, or when a friend loses his enthusiasm. This ability to sense a problem in its early stages is vital for parents. “Somehow, my mother knows how I feel before I talk to her,” observes Marie, “so it is easy for me to talk frankly to her about my problems.”

Use your imagination. The most powerful way to stimulate empathy is to ask yourself: ‘If I were in this situation, how would I feel? How would I respond? What would I need?’
We often find it easier to judge mistakes than to understand feelings. However, if we try hard to imagine the distress of someone afflicted, it will help us to sympathize rather than condemn.

I loved the definition in the article too because it said empathy is feeling another's pain in our own heart.

Not sure if that helps?

[AnyDream]

Fantastic question!

Without doing any reading, my intuitive response would be YES - but I suspect it may be (a lot) more difficult for some people to learn than others.

When you think about it, there are a number of aspects to empathy - the ability to interpret and recognise what another person is thinking/feeling - as well as the ability to respond appropriately in a supportive way. So if you break that down, it involves things like - being able to recognise emotional/mental states in another person, being able to relate that to own's own lived (or imagined) experience, as well as lot of communication and social skills (in the responding part).

I've recently been reading about "alexithymia" which is where people are unable to recognise and verbalise their own emotional state - and there's a correlation with having difficulties with interpreting facial expressions in others, and with being able to see/imagine how things look or seem to another person (ie being able to have "theory of mind"). It also comes with a limited ability to imagine abstract things. So, if you had a child with a degree of alexithymia, teaching empathy would involve teaching a whole lot of skills - every thing from naming feeling states, talking about own feelings, looking at facial expressions and matching with appropriate words, as well as appropriate social reactions. A lot of methods, games etc have been developed for teaching these sorts of skills to kids, because of the obvious need for them with conditions like ASD.

[Teeki]

I've never really thought about specifically teaching empathy, but I guess we're doing that with DD.

If DS is playing with something and she snatches it, we ask her to think about how he might feel. We ask how she feels when people take her toys, and say that's how DS feels right now. We ask her how she thinks he feels, if he's crying she says he feels sad, and that's not nice. So we ask her how she might be able to fix that, by giving back his toy and not snatching it.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Alfie Kohn gave me my template for modelling empathy with my kids, and I read it when my son was 6 months old or so.
Teaching my showing it and verbalising the rationale behind actions. I'll read that link now

[myturn]

Also talking about how people who are different to you are also the same as you is important - so focusing on how we are all the same rather than different (and we tend to notice differences more easily) ...

I think I've related myself in this sentence, I hope I'm making myself clear...

I had a great article about this somewhere... Will see if I can find it...

Here it is

http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/556

Also kids matters lists evidence based programs to help with this and has some great resources...

http://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/familie...riendships-and


I really hope these links are okay to post.... So sorry if they are not.

[Artechim]

Thanks everyone for the links, they have been very helpful xx