Nurturing Empathy in Toddlers

Empathy is the ability to imagine how someone else is feeling in a particular situation and respond with care. This is a very complex skill to develop but it is an important building block in your child’s social development.
What you can do:

• Empathize with your child:  “Are you feeling scared of that dog? He is a nice dog but he is barking really loud. That can be scary.”
• Talk about others’ feelings. “Kayla is feeling sad because you took her toy car. Please give Kayla back her car and then you choose another.”
• Be a role model. When you have strong, respectful relationships and interact with others in a kind and
   caring way, your child learns from your example.
• Validate your child’s difficult emotions. Sometimes when our child is sad, angry, or disappointed, we rush to try and fix it right away, to make the feelings go away because we want to protect him from any pain. However, these feelings are part of life and ones that children need to learn to cope with. In fact, labeling and validating difficult feelings actually helps children learn to handle them.
• Think through the use of “I’m sorry.” We often insist that our toddlers say “I’m sorry” as a way for them to take responsibility for their actions. But many toddlers don’t fully understand what these words mean. While it may feel “right” for them to say “I’m sorry”, it doesn’t necessarily help toddlers learn empathy.  A more meaningful approach can be to help children focus on the other person’s feelings: “Chandra, look at Sierra—she’s very sad.  She’s crying.  She’s rubbing her arm where you pushed her. Let’s see if she is okay.” This helps children make the connection between the action (shoving) and the reaction (a friend who is sad and crying). 
• Be patient. Developing empathy takes time. Remember, empathy is a complex skill and will continue to develop across your child’s life.

*Article taken from  http://www.zerotothree.org/