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Why are empathy and sympathy important in children?
Why do children pull their dog’s tail and yet cry when they see a wounded cat? This is because children are born with some level of compassion but when they are young, they often do unkind things due to poor impulse control. This inborn compassion needs to be enhanced by parents so that their children grow up to be well adjusted, successful, and likeable people.
People without compassion are usually intolerant towards different personalities and cultures and find it difficult to form good and lasting relationships. It is especially important to teach children to be empathetic and sympathetic because life has become competitive, cutthroat, and violent and without compassion, they might become anti-social.
Empathy is the ability to recognize what another person is feeling. Sympathy, on the other hand, is the ability to recognize and understand what someone else is feeling. Empathy gives rise to sympathy but the difference is that with the latter, the emotions are not identical. Research has found that children, who have the ability to understand other people’s feelings nonverbally are popular, emotionally stable, and perform better in school even though their IQs are more or less the same as the other students. Compassionate children also grow up to voluntarily do things that benefit others and not themselves.
In some children, the feeling of compassion comes more naturally than others and so the role of parents in instilling this value is of extreme importance.
- Ensure that you show your love and affection for your child right from the time of his birth as this forms a bond without which children find it difficult to be loving and affectionate later on
- Teach him to understand other people’s feelings by imagining himself in their place
- When your child is a little older, make sure to talk to him about the benefits of compassion and how this quality will make him a better person. Continue repeating this message till it is ingrained in his brain. You can use the help of stories and real life examples to get your point across. Also, make sure that you to talk to him often about his feelings, your feelings, and what other people might feel
- Make sure that you set a good example. If you have gone shopping with your child and you see an old man trying to open the door, open it for him. Explain to your child why you did so
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