How Do I Help Children 3-5 Years Old See Things From a Different View?
Teaching empathy to children provides them with positive skills that will aid them socially and academically as they grow. Parents, or other primary caregivers, are the first and most important teachers of empathy for their children, as children will learn how to treat others based on how their parents interact with both them and other people in their lives. Parents can teach empathy through discussing and acknowledging feelings, modeling appropriate behaviors and helping children identify emotions in themselves and other people.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Help your child learn to identify emotions through facial expressions and body language. Books and videos are available to help children learn the difference between a happy face, a sad face and an angry face. Making these faces with your child and discussing their differences will help your child identify emotions in others. This exercise also will help children identify what their face and body looks and feels like during different emotional states. Body language, or non-verbal communication, takes time to learn, but it is essential in expressing emotions and in understanding the emotions of others.
-
2
Model good coping skills for your child. For example, discuss with your child your own emotions and why you are feeling them, especially if they are negative. Treating children with empathy and acknowledging their feelings will help them learn how to treat others. This will also help your child identify her own emotional states, which then validates her emotions and sense of worth. That sense of validation and worth can then be transferred to others through discussion and comparison. When you experience emotions or interact with others in various ways, talk with your child about how you felt and how you acted, even if you acted poorly and wished you had acted differently.
-
-
3
Discuss characters in books and movies to help your child learn why and how people feel different emotions. This exercise will help your child learn important cognitive skills, which will help him regulate his own feelings as well as develop the abstract thinking skills necessary to think and feel as others do. Talk to your child about different ways a character could have responded. Compare these reactions with times in your own child's life when she felt similarly and how she might have reacted differently.
-
4
Praise your child for when he reacts well, but do not make him feel badly when he has difficulties. Acknowledge that emotions can be difficult to handle and always treat it as a work in progress. Learning and practicing empathy is a lifelong pursuit.
-
1
References
Resources
- Photo Credit beautiful happy child image by Paul Hill from Fotolia.com
