PRACTICES
Children & family Faithfamily & Q+A
How do I teach my child empathy? Our children hear it every day at school and at home: share, take turns, keep your hands to yourself. Yet it takes more than a list of rules to raise children who share God’s love in what they do and say.
Empathy is a diffi cult concept for a child just learning about emotions. Parents and other family members play an important role in nurturing emotional awareness.
Zero to Three, a nonprofi t for nurturing early development, provides a few ways you can teach your children to recognize and name their or others’ feelings:
Model empathy. Children look to us for guidance as their fi rst teacher. Give them the words they need to express complex feelings.
Read books or Bible stories and explore emotions. A simple technique to use in reading any story together is to ask your child how he thinks the characters are feeling. How was Jonah feeling? Scared. How did the sick man feel when he was healed? Happy.
‘ Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.’
Bedtime prayers are a wonderful opportunity to encourage your child to think of others. Ask your child who they would like to pray for and remind them to think about who might need help as well as with whom they can celebrate.
46 APRIL 2016
Be patient and validate diffi cult emotions. When your child throws a tantrum, for example, tell her you understand she is angry and you will wait to talk until she has calmed down.
Romans 12:15
Expressing empathy—understanding how others feel and responding appropriately—is an essential part of our calling as Christians. If we arm our children with empathy today, they will grow into caring adults.
By Rachel Reinke Nevergall
Nevergall lives with her husband and two children in Austin, Texas, where she serves as children’s ministry chair at Triumphant Love Lutheran Church and shares her journey of parenting on her blog
raiseandshine.sqsp.com.
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