Five ways to build kids' compassion

Teach your children compassion and empathy from a young age.

The experts out there agree: we're all born with the capacity for empathy and compassion but like language, it needs to be taught and witnessed at work in others.
In this highly competitive, fast-paced world how do we teach our kids to be happy for the happiness of others and to actually understand how others feel?

Maia Szalavitz, co-author of Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential – and Endangered, says kids need to be exposed to an empathetic environment in a bid to unleash their compassion potential.

"The most important of these is nurturing, responsive parenting," she says.

"Babies whose needs for touch, comfort and soothing are not met regularly by one or two primary caregivers will have difficulty developing empathy – just as babies who aren't exposed to speech will not be able to learn to speak.
"People are most empathetic when they feel calm and safe – if your own needs aren't being met, it's hard to think of someone else's. This is why it's impossible to spoil an infant by responding to him or her—and why punishment doesn't make bullies into nicer people."

Empathy 101 starts now

With all that information on board, how can parents go about actually teaching their children to think about others and how others feel?

Dr Joe Tucci, chief executive officer of the Australian Childhood Foundation who incidentally believes many parents are unconsciously teaching their children how to be compassionate, has these very simple ideas and activities that parents can put into practice immediately.

Five ways to encourage children's compassion:

1. Come up with some ideas as a family that makes someone else or others who needs it feel happy – and it doesn't have to be a charity. It could be as simple as taking an elderly relative out for a cup of tea and some conversation.

2. Talk about feelings together. Come up with scenarios and ask your kids how that might make them feel. Help them boost their feelings vocabulary. You can even do this while reading books or looking at pictures of faces in magazines.

3. Make a plan as a family to do something that has a broader community or even global impact. This could be sponsoring a child in need, lessening your family's carbon footprint or volunteering for a cause.

4. See then discuss a movie in which people help others. "This is a fun and entertaining way to teach compassion because kids love movies," Dr Tucci says, adding that he and his son even managed to have such a discussion after watching Transformers recently.

5. Recognise acts of kindness undertaken by your child. For example if you see your child sharing their toys or food, call attention to the act and talk about how that act made everyone feel as well as what the feelings could have been if the act of kindness hadn't happened.

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