Can you teach empathy?

[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