Express Empathy

One of the ways to help children learn from life is to become their counselor or coach. Life is a great teacher and when it dishes out its lessons, you, as a parent, have a great opportunity to support, encourage, and coach your child to learn from the experience.

The key is to express empathy and validate the pain or disappointment your child is experiencing. Then, you can gently move into a suggestion mode if needed. For example, when the cat scratches your four-year-old son who is playing rough, don't just launch into a lecture. Instead say something like, "Ouch, I'll bet that hurt. It looks like he doesn't like rough play does he?"

Or when your eight-year-old daughter is hungry before dinner because she refused to eat lunch you might say, "I'll bet you're hungry. That's a long time to go without food."

If you leave out the empathy and just move into a lecture mode, children may react poorly. They may view your approach as condescending or cold and respond with defensiveness, anger, or hostility. Empathy communicates love; while at the same time allows the child to accept responsibility for the problem.

Empathy is a primary ingredient for partnership. Empathy reveals understanding and care. Empathy validates the emotions a child is experiencing even though the actions that come out of those emotions may need correction. Demonstrating your love while your child learns from experience can be one of the best ways to teach children lasting lessons about life.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing. Letting our children learn for themselves is a painfull thing to watch. We want to protect them from everything. I can remember some of my most valuable lessons being the most painful. Do your own memory search. Do you think you were willing to learn that lesson from advise or lecture or was the process and the pain necessary for you to grow and change? I think both can be true, but God is the orchestrator. We are just 1st string.


This parenting tip comes from the book, Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.
With final comments by Brenda Herrera