Teaching Empathy in Kids

Video Transcript

"Teaching children apathy is very important. Apathy is basically the ability to put yourself in another person's shoes. And one of the ways that you can teach your children apathy is, number one, model it. You have them see how you respond to them in a comforting, compassionate manner. And, by experiencing that, and also by witnessing that, they are going to learn to be empathetic in their own way. Baily, what's been going on for you? I'm mad that I can't go to my friend's house. You want to go to your friend's house? So, that makes you pretty upset? It's hard when you can't go somewhere that you really want to go, isn't it? Yes. You get kind of angry about it, don't you? So the more that children see you responding to them in this way, the more that they are eventually going to be able to internalize those values for themselves. Initially, they'll just learn that's how things are in the family, when somebody's hurt or upset they are going to see that parent or another child is giving them warmth or attention instead of saying stop being such a baby or there's nothing to cry about, get over it. Eventually what happens is they internalize those values, those behaviors, and then they're able to go on in their adult life to model them."