Helping children develop empathy
Dear Lower School Families,
The faculty, staff, and I cannot wait until Tuesday, January 19 to welcome our students back to campus. I will lead a Welcome Back message for all classes at 8:10 a.m. as we begin 2021 together on campus.
I hope that you were able to join the SPEAK session, The Formative Five, presented by Dr. Tom Hoerr this week. (If you missed it, you may watch a recording here.) Over the next few weeks, I will highlight aspects of Tom’s presentation along with excerpts from The Formative Five book. Tom outlines the purpose of his book as a tool to prepare students for success beyond school—“students who will be kind and caring people, responsible and productive workers, and citizens who make a positive difference in the world.”
Hoerr presents the following questions and lists the formative five success skills, along with the associated terms: What kinds of adults will your students be? Will they be good spouses, good friends, and good parents? Will they be respectful and honest, and will they work to make the world a better place?
The Formative Five Success Skills | Associated Terms |
Empathy | Caring, understanding, compassionate |
Self-Control | Measured, restrained, disciplined |
Integrity | Honest, trustworthy, respectful |
Embracing Diversity | Accepting, culturally responsive, perspective |
Grit | Tenacious, resilient, fortitude |
This week, let’s explore Empathy. In The Formative Five, Hoerr highlights Roman Krznaric’s definition of empathy as, “the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of other people, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.” Hoerr also provides guidance on how empathy and sympathy are different, and that true empathy begins with listening, understanding, and awareness.
There are three levels of empathy that we can experience and have the ability to develop through life:
- Cognitive Empathy allows you to put yourself in someone’s place and see their perspective.
- Emotional Empathy is when you feel the other person’s emotions—almost as if you had ‘caught’ the emotions.
- Actionable Empathy moves you to do something or show support instead of remaining quiet.
Think about your child and consider how you view their journey of developing empathy in a variety of situations. Hoerr stressed in the presentation that all levels of empathy can be developed with practice, and that everyone benefits from ongoing and intentional practice.
Ideas to explore and practice at home with your child:
- Talk about feelings and emotions and how those look in words and actions for different people. Use feeling cards to discuss a broad range of emotions.
- Identify emotions in pictures. Gather random magazine photos or family photos and discuss how each person might be feeling or thinking. Provide guiding questions or prompts to engage their thinking at a deeper level.
- Role play social scenarios and exchange roles to allow your child to view alternate perspectives.
- Perform service or random acts of kindness for others. Stress the idea that no recognition or praise is necessary to reinforce the feeling of caring for others.
- Read stories or watch movies or videos that demonstrate empathy.
Each of these activities can provide a window into your child’s development and provide a teachable moment. Follow up with discussions to understand how your child is internalizing and processing each situation. We (the adults) are the primary teachers and models for our children. I encourage you to look for opportunities to continue developing our children into kind and caring people. Next week we will explore Self-Control.
Wishing everyone a restful weekend –
Angie Crabtree
LS Principal
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