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Key points
- Empathy is partly instinct and partly a matter of learning and practice.
- One way to show empathy for a child is to match their voice, face, and body language.
- Parents can also take in the child's pain and offer soothing and security in response.
Parents are instinctively empathic with their children. We feel it deeply when our children suffer and when they are full of joy. At the same time, stress can make it harder to experience and share empathy, and parents are experiencing a lot of stress these days.
Many parents feel confused about how to access more compassion for their children and how best to express that empathy. So, even though empathy is instinctive, reviewing the basic principles and practice is still valuable.
I meet regularly with people who work in parent education—supporting and encouraging parents to be more playful, patient, and connected with their children. As you can imagine, this is a very empathic group of people. So I asked them recently how they coach parents to access and express empathy to their children. Here are some of their suggestions:
- Listen more than you talk.
- Reflect on what you hear, using exact words or a close paraphrase.
- Pause with silence when children have big emotions so they have room to feel their feelings without the grownup trying to cheer them up or talk them out of it.
- Use phrases such as “Sounds to me like…” or “Seems like…” instead of telling a child what they are feeling or experiencing.
- Acknowledge the intensity of a child’s emotion, even if you believe it is out of proportion: “That sounds like a very painful feeling” or “Thank you for letting me know how you feel.”
- Put yourself inside the other; imagine experiencing the world with their body, emotions, and stage of development.
The paradox
I resonated emotionally with each of those ways to offer empathy to children.
The following two suggestions, however, really made me think:
- One of the parent educators said, “We can listen with empathy by matching the face, voice, and level of intensity of the other person.” I agreed readily. This is often called mirroring, but it is a special kind of mirror because we don’t want to scare the child with the full expression of a very intense emotion. But we don’t just speak in a monotone either, with no expression on our faces. We want children to know that we get it about how they feel.
- Another parent educator gave a very different example of empathy. She said, “This morning, I remained calm and connected with my baby when she was screaming. I started getting agitated inside, but I calmed myself and spread that peace to the baby. She calmed down eventually, and we felt so connected after.” I could immediately sense the power of this different kind of empathy, as this mom felt inside herself the turmoil of the child and reflected a soothing message that everything was okay.
But these seem like opposites! One is matching and joining, sharing the depth of the emotional experience. The other is soothing and emanating peacefulness, out of step with the child's feelings. How can matching and soothing both be empathy?
The answer is that matching and soothing both convey: I am here, you are not alone, I hear you. Sometimes, we convey that message by showing in our face, voice, and body that we truly get what the other person shares. We show it back to them. We tap into the universal shared experience of emotions: I see you. I open my heart to you.
Other times, we communicate the same messages very differently by staying calm and sending out light and peace. We convey I am not overwhelmed by this thing you are feeling. I can be here calmly with you while you feel it. It is safe for you to have this feeling and safe to share it with me.
Which way is best?
How do we know whether to convey empathy by mirroring or by projecting calmness and security? Try both. See which works best for you and your children. If you always tend to soothe, try stepping back just a little and reflecting before you soothe. You’re so upset. I see that. It’s overwhelming. That is not a matter of withholding comfort or being cold. It provides room for the expression and completion of the child’s emotions.
If you always tend to match and join the emotion, you might be stirring that feeling up more in yourself and your children. Try soothing and see how that works: I’m here, it’s okay, all is well. That is not dismissing the emotion or distracting the child from it; it's providing a pathway to emotional balance.
How do you show your empathy? How could you show a little more?
