If you’ve ever leaned back and closed your eyes for a moment or two, after a particularly grueling day, only to hear an impatient little voice say, “Mommy, it’s not bedtime, get up and play with me!” Then you may already know that empathy is a skill which takes time to master.
One of the “soft skills”—abilities that are considered general life skills rather than being specific to a particular job or task—empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings, and it doesn’t always come easily.
In fact, while children are born with the capacity for complex skills like empathy, their development hinges on their interactions with the role models in their lives. The feelings and reactions we model, the conversations we have, and the time that we spend all play a role in determining whether they reach their full potential.
Empathy and resilience: soft skills that go hand-in-hand
Because empathy requires children to notice the feelings of others, and then relate to those feelings, it’s a characteristic that takes time, practice, and life experience to develop.
“Developmentally, kids start out being very inwardly focused,” explains Ali Anderson, K-4 counselor at New Vision Charter School in Loveland. “It takes effort on a parent’s part, a teacher’s part, a coach’s part, a counselor’s part, to teach kids how to look outside themselves and recognize that other people also have feelings, and it’s possible that these feelings could be different from their own.”
Empathy’s partner, resilience, meanwhile, is an advanced skill which requires experience with overcoming difficulties time and again to acquire.
“Resilience is being disappointed, feeling discouraged, and trying again anyway,” says Anderson. “It’s learning to be brave and believe in yourself, and that’s really fostered through connection.”
A child who is resilient often has a bigger capacity for empathy, due to their positive sense of connection and emotional awareness, while an empathetic child’s increased sense of belonging provides the coping skills to foster resilience.
Building the foundation
In her daily work with elementary-aged students, Anderson spends a good deal of her time paving the road to empathy and resilience, but developing such complicated skills isn’t always a straight-forward route.
“I really try to focus on helping our students learn about different emotions and feelings, how we experience them, and what we do with them. We also practice noticing how others are feeling.”
Once Anderson puts the building blocks into place, she says it’s really the child’s “way of being” that becomes most important.
“It’s less about what I teach them and more about the way our teachers, parents, and other adults in a child’s life engage with them that makes the difference. When kids are surrounded by adults who are showing them what it looks like to be empathetic and resilient, that’s what makes the biggest difference.”
What can parents do?
Perhaps the hardest, but most important thing a parent can do in helping their child develop these skills, is to own up to their own mistakes.
“When we as parents lose our cool, which we all do, we can say to our child, ‘I apologize, this is how I was feeling, and this is how I should’ve reacted.’ Talking it through with them, naming our own feelings, and teaching them how to handle them appropriately—that’s how we encourage empathy and resilience in our kids,” says Anderson.
In addition, Anderson says it’s crucial that parents make time every day to play, talk, and model these skills for their kids. When spending time with her own children at home, Anderson likes to incorporate these skills into their everyday lives.
“I’ll say, ‘I know you want to play with the red-haired doll, but I’m playing with her right now. You can have a turn when I’m done.’ Or, ‘I’m sorry, but today you are going to use the blue cup instead of the purple cup.’”
She explains that, by giving her kids opportunities to practice resilience when they don’t get their way at home, she’s setting them up to be able to react appropriately when the same thing happens at school.
“Challenges are part of life, so if a child can face them and process them and learn from them with a trusted adult early on, in an encouraging environment, that’s when the big learning and character development happen,” says Anderson.
Play the long game
It can be tempting to get lost in our phones while our kids are playing contentedly, or to give in to screen time when they throw a tantrum, especially when the efforts we do make to practice these skills with them don’t seem to yield much, but Anderson reminds parents that change doesn’t happen overnight.
“These are certainly not characteristics you can teach once and expect a child to understand and demonstrate,” says Anderson. “The language has to be part of their everyday lives and experiences to really develop into a practiced habit.”
She says every day is a new opportunity to teach the skills that will help kids succeed throughout their lives.
“I think what it comes down to is being present with your kids: engage with them, talk with them, challenge them and be their cornerstone. Celebrate their wins and help them work through their struggles,” says Anderson. “Go against the grain—get involved and stay involved!”
