Believe your child is capable of being kind: Dr. Bhavna Barmi
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Seeing everything from other people’s perspective helps garner a larger perspective about life, stimulates emotional growth and development, and fosters lasting social connections. This is what makes empathy an essential life skill that should be taught from childhood. Not only is it important in building healthy and happy relationships with family and friends, it is also a life skill necessary for leadership, a quality much appreciated in the professional sphere. In this interview, Dr. Bhavna Barmi, a mental health and behavioural sciences expert, talks about how empathy and other values like can be inculcated in kids.
How to explain empathy to children?
Values like compassion, empathy and unconditional giving are essential for development of a child. Defining compassion for kids could be difficult if you’re explaining it in adult terms. Saying to a child that compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with the desire to elevate it or that empathy is the ability to understand and respect the perspective of others, would likely have his eyes glazed all over in confusion. Children need definitions of compassionate behavior explained in words that they can understand.
How do children develop these values?
Teaching compassion starts at birth. A child’s sense of empathy appears early in life which can be seen in the way an infant cries when she hears another baby cry. When two kids try to console one another on the playground, they are also empathising with each other. Such behavior will develop the ability to put themselves in the shoes of someone else and understand what they are feeling or experiencing. Young children are naturally ego-centric and are very much inclined to think mostly about themselves and their needs. They are not yet ready to consider the needs and feelings of others but the inception of these senses is an important developmental process for young children.
Why is it important to inculcate compassion and unconditional giving in children?
These values encourage tolerance and acceptance of others while promoting good mental health and social harmony. These also go a long way in reducing bullying tendencies in kids. Compassion and empathy are attributes that make kids happy, helping them adapt to challenging situations in an efficient manner.
How can parents teach these values to young ones?
Parents are children’s first teachers. So, being a role model is the best way to teach them empathy and compassion. Believe your child is capable of being kind and personally model positive action. Your acts of kindness are the best teaching for her. Also, treat kids with respect while teaching them to pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues. Showing them that how they treat others matters greatly is important. Encourage them to treat others the way they want to be treated. Acknowledge kindness and let them visualize, perceive and receive it. Be sensitive to the messages your child picks up from everywhere because all the exposures develop contribute to his personality.