Empathy and Children
By Nicola Reynolds
Empathy is described as ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’. As an adult this
is a skill that defines us as a good friend, a successful individual, someone who is self-aware and is a
strong leader. To us empathy may come easy but let’s think of the challenge that we face teaching our
younger generation these skills.
There are many ways we can encourage children to learn about empathy, giving opportunities to learn
in and out of the classroom will maximise the learning process.
Managing emotional and social situations is at the heart of learning how to be empathetic, showing
others that not only can you handle your own emotions but those of others. Showing respect and being
able to relate to others positively, with compassion all comes with being empathetic, but we also need
to remember, being empathic is not just about understanding the feelings of others but also about
expressing yourself positively.
Below are some activities that promote and encourage children to understand the feelings of others
and how to respond to them:
ROLE PLAY: using the continuous provision of the ‘home corner’, ‘shop’, ‘doctors surgery’ within our
classrooms gives the perfect opportunity to stage scenarios where children have to learn how to deal
with other children playing the part of an unhappy customer, the poorly patient going to the doctors,
etc.
HAPPY NOTE: this is a great activity from year 2 and upwards where children are given smiley faced
post-it notes or brightly coloured card. They write anonymous positive notes about each person within
their classroom. This promotes being positive within yourself and towards others, a key part of being
empathetic.
THE WHOLE SCHOOL APPROACH: using everyone within a school, both staff and children, is a
fantastic way to promote anything. The idea is everyone writes about how they have delivered an act
of kindness and then this is promoted to everyone by a huge display.
USING THE INTERNET: using the learning resource of the internet is an effective way to teach
anything. Getting children to watch age appropriate short video clips of other children living in different
parts of the world, maybe less fortunate than themselves, is a great communication activity to discuss
how others may be feeling, how you feel about the situation, showing empathy, being respectful to
others.
PUPPETS: these are a great way to model feelings to children, again using role play enables children
to be active in their learning.
Using the above visual learning approaches gives children the experience of seeing/hearing the
opinions of others.
The most important thing we can do is to start teaching children about what empathy is and its
importance, this is turn will enable them to become a world-class citizen for the future.