Empathic Family & Parenting

A successful, supportive intimate relationship can be one of the most rewarding relationships a person will ever have. But achieving this type of union can be challenging. For some couples, communication can seem one sided, and effective dialogue is rare.

However, licensed psychotherapist Julie Hanks, LCSW, reveals that couples can start down the path of healthy communication by developing empathy. In a recent article, Hanks explains how empathy can help partners avoid frustration and improve relationships.

 Hanks, J. (2012). Empathy: The secret sauce to a happy marriage. Retrieved from http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/blogs/love-sex/empathy-secret-sauce-happy-marriage-044200327.html

By considering what a person feels you confirm the value of that person. Children become caring and loving individuals when their parents empathize with them. Research indicates that child neglect is associated with a lack of their parents’ emotional empathy.

A child learns empathy when she sees her mother hug a friend in distress. He learns empathy when he sees his dad help a neighbor. He learns empathy when his parents understand what he feels. A lack of empathy can result in antisocial behaviors, and many persons who are addicted seem to have impaired empathy.

But kids also learn self discipline from the daily limits you set, as long as you set them with empathy. Why is empathy essential to this process? Because your child is less likely to struggle against the limit. She may not like your limit, but she feels your understanding and compassion.

She knows you're on her side. So she chooses to stop fighting for what she wants, so she can have something she wants more -- to stay lovingly connected to you, even to be "like" you. She chooses to regulate her own impulses. She accepts your limit, and even internalizes it -- makes it her own...

What does an empathic limit look like? Empathy is "feeling" the other person's point of view. Setting limits is informing your child of a rule or expectation. Here's how you combine them: 

SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS, SPECIALISTS, AND HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS

Focus on empathy by discussing this virtue and poster. To deepen it's meaning, focus on an activity, suggestion, book, or printable. Once an understanding of this trait has been achieved and demonstrated, present award(s). Visit my store to purchase similar virtue packets, awards, posters, and task cards.

INCLUDED RESOURCES
1. Suggested Activities
2. Suggested Activities Continued
3. Teaching Guide
4. Discussion Starter Questions
5. What Can I Show Empathy? Printable
6. Empathy Printable
7. Showing Empathy... Printable
8. How Would You Feel? Printable
9. Feelings Printable
10. What Does Empathy Mean? Printable
11. Empathy Acrostic Poem Printable
12. Empathy word Printable
13. Empathy Poster
14. Empathy Award
15. Empathy Vouchers
16. TOU and Credits

They found that if her partner was allowed to hold her hand, she reported feeling lower levels of pain than if the couple merely sat next to one another.

Scientists believe that holding hands with a loved one activates an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associates with pain, empathy and heart functioning. ..

People 'subconsciously sync up' 

'The more empathic the partner and the stronger the analgesic [pain relieving] effect, the higher the synchronization between the two when they are touching,' said Dr Pavel Goldstein, from the University of Colorado at Boulder....

Empathetic' partners ease pain more 

'It appears that pain totally interrupts this interpersonal synchronization between couples,' Dr Goldstein said.

'Touch brings it back.'

His previous research found that the more empathy the man showed for the woman, the more her pain subsided during touch.

By DAISY DUNNE 

06/21/2017

According to Nelson, there are five ways you can help your preschooler learn empathy:

1. Recognize and address your child’s needs.
A child’s needs and wants aren’t always convenient. If adult schedules interfere with nap time, it’s tempting to tell your child, “You can wait a few minutes.” But a “few minutes” can seem like an eternity to a sleepy 4-year-old. Validate your child’s feelings by saying instead, “I know you’re tired, and we’ll get home as soon as we can and then you can go right to sleep.”

2. Focus on feelings.
A child’s needs and wants aren’t always convenient

3. Teach verbal and non-verbal cues.

4. Use pretend play.

5. Encourage inclusion.

Empathy means the capacity to understand or feel what another person feels or experiences in any given situation. People can generally learn empathy at any given age, but a younger person’s mind is still growing and learning (and pretty self-centered).

As parent’s, we can help these young minds learn empathy as an important skill to foster healthy relationships as they age.

Showing empathy is the result of many social-emotional skills that are...

Looking your child in the eye and making empathy-building a priority will lead to them building good relationships

We live in a world that has become increasingly social online, yet we seem to lack face-to-face contact more than ever. 

Yet, the fact is that there are many people in the world who are in distress and need our help. And parents know that it’s important to teach children to develop empathy and care for others instead of growing up to be self-centred individuals — a task that is increasingly difficult in a “selfie”-mad world.

A couple of weeks ago, I listened to parenting expert Dr. Michele Borba, the author of UnSelfie speak about the importance of child empathy at an event that showcased Hasbro’s Be Fearless Be Kind philanthropic initiative.

This year, my husband Reggie and I are focusing on helping our kids grow as “givers” because they receive so many great things and experiences from family, friends and “blogger perks”. Since empathetic people tend to be givers, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, so I taped Dr. Borba’s speech about the 4 best ways to teach your kids to be empathetic people.

Tips on Being an Empathic Parent

1. Even in those very hurried moments, when your child tries to tell you something, interrupt what you’re doing and look them in the eye and listen. It may only take a second or lead to an important conversation. Being empathic means showing you care to listen.

 Laurie Hollman,

DEVENDRA VISHWAKARMA

7 Reasons Empathy Important Relationship It is not uncommon to disagree with another person’s views. Be it politics, religion, or something

Why is empathy so important?

If everyone in the world could empathize with each other, the world truly would be a better place. It is understandable that hoping for worldwide empathy is a long shot, so why not start slow and learn to empathize with your significant other? Here are 7 glaring reasons why empathy is very important in a relationship, and why you should be practicing this virtue.

#1 Bridge the divide.

#2 Give each other attention

#3 Bring out the positive.

#4 Compassion is practiced.

#5 Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

#6 It teaches patience.

#7 Work on your flaws.

REVA SETH 11.18.16 5:00 AM
I’ve never been able to sit through a full episode of The Apprentice. President-Elect Donald Trump’s management and communication style flashes me back to my own three-month stint working with a boss like that. It gives me an instant migraine.

But my own reaction isn't just a matter of personal preference. The business world is moving decisively toward management models that conflict with Trump's pugnacious leadership style. Collaboration, active listening, vulnerability, and empathy are all traits companies, recruiters, and hiring managers say they value—and increasingly have a hard time finding....

Reading emotional cues, being familiar with the language of emotions, and 'feeling with' the other is what empathy is all about," says Mary Gordon, the founder of the Roots of Empathy classroom program, which has been shown to reduce levels of aggression among schoolchildren. "Parents and teachers have powerful opportunities every day to nurture empathy in children," says Gordon. "They do this when they interact and speak with others, including the child, in an empathic way.

Dr. Borba, an old friend of Parents who’s worked with schools around the world, has many specific suggestions for how we can help our children be kind and inclusive. “Before children can ‘step into someone’s shoes,’ they must first develop the ability to read nonverbal cues in facial expressions, gestures, posture, and voice tone,” she says.

Here are three ways to help.

Spend time with a baby. Observing an infant is a powerful way for your child to tune in to emotions.

Build a feeling vocabulary. The more of these words your child knows, the more savvy she’ll be about how other people are feeling: agreeable, apprehensive,...

Communicate face-to-face. Kids also learn to read someone’s emotions by making eye contact...

Diane Debrovner

Are you empathetic? Is your partner? It might be the secret to a happier marriage. According to a recent study from Harvard University, being able to accurately read a partner's emotions--and believing that your partner is trying to understand your emotions--is related to couple relationship satisfaction. ..

10 Things Happy Couples Do

The authors suggested that for men, being able to understand and be empathetic to their partner's negative emotions may feel threatening to the relationship, but women don't seem to find negative emotions threatening. Findings suggest that effort, not just accuracy, positively impacts relationships.

Developing Empathy
If your relationship is distressed or if you simply want to make a good relationship better, here are some ways to work on your empathy skills.

by Julie Hanks, 

How to nurture empathy in children.
Children have the hardwiring for compassion and empathy, but as with all tiny seeds, the capacity for empathy will need nurturing and gentle guidance to develop. Here are some ways to do that.

Encourage their imagination.
Cognitive empathy – the ability to accurately understand and interpret what someone else might be thinking – draws from our imagination and emotional intelligence. When you read stories, watch movies together, or observe people in real life, encourage their curiosity. ..

Acknowledge the emotion in others.
Reading emotions is the first step, then comes the acknowledgement. If our own joy or sadness was met with a stony expression by someone close to us, it would probably leave us feeling a bit empty. 

Do what I do and guess how I feel....

 Face to face. It’s how the best talk happens....

Let’s pretend....

Stay with the feeling – it has a good reason for being there...

.. 

Karen Young

Luckily, there are some calmer, more rational ways to get to this point, and there's actually a form of relationship therapy that's designed to teach couples how to express, listen, and understand one another in these types of situations. It's called Imago therapy.

Like many forms of therapy, the point of Imago therapy is to develop a set of skills that will help you and your partner reconnect and restore empathy, says Rebecca Sears, LPC, an Imago relationship therapist.

That sounds vague and theoretical, but Imago uses a specific dialogue, or script, to help you get there. While I've never tried Imago therapy, there are ways that you can use Imago skills in your everyday life.

You just have to follow the three distinct steps: mirroring, validation, and empathy.

Confused? Here's what a typical Imago therapy session entails.

That’s one takeaway from a study released last week that found that when an empathetic partner holds the hand of a woman in pain, their heart and respiratory rates sync and her pain dissipates.

“The more empathic the partner and the stronger the analgesic effect, the higher the synchronization between the two when they are touching,” said lead author Pavel Goldstein, a postdoctoral pain researcher in the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at CU Boulder.

The study of 22 couples, published in the journal Scientific Reports last week, is the latest in a growing body of research on “interpersonal synchronization,” the phenomenon in which individuals begin to physiologically mirror the people they’re with.

 Lisa Ann Marshall –

As a leader in a work setting, it's so important to have empathy for others. It's not possible to lead effectively unless you can somehow start seeing the world from the eyes of your employees. You have to stop "career building" and stop focusing on your own narrow agenda. No team ever survives for long with a leader who only wants to advance his or her own agenda and achieve success.

In fact, every healthy team has empathy flowing in abundance. It's so ingrained in every person there is no other option....

Learning to have empathy made me a better dad, a better leader...a better person. I can't imagine what kind of corporate drone I would have become otherwise.

Listen to Slate’s parenting podcast discuss how young is too young to teach empathy, and what to do about a boy who dominates his little brother.

By Rebecca Lavoie, Steve Lickteig, and Gabriel Roth

Research shows an ever-growing sense of entitlement in our youth, along with an exponential rise in bullying, despite anti bullying efforts. Why? Because too frequently, parents confuse w sympathy w empathy.

Dr. Leonard, psychotherapist, explains the difference between the two.

 1) Sympathy is feeling sorry for your child. When you feel sorry for your child, you tend to lower expectations, make concessions, and demand rules be changed for them. This creates a sense of entitlement in the child.

2) Empathy is emotional attunement.

The empathically challenged — for want of a better term — tend to stonewall, shut out, become passive aggressive with partners and family, whom they often blame. They may lie to avoid confrontation, and tend to not share their vulnerabilities or feelings. Many can’t pre-empt, predict or remember simple things that are important to their loved ones.

Feeling invisible, with needs chronically unmet, is devastating, hence the sufferer of AfDD can develop severe frustration, anger, stress, despair, self-doubt or anxiety, which often spills into a range of illnesses. 

RUTH OSTROW

Empathy Can Be Learned

If he’s basically nice, he can probably learn to show more empathy. You might tell him, gently, before venting, that you would like to be heard and understood, not “fixed.” When he does listen thoughtfully, tell him how much it means to you that he’s really there for you. Your compliment is likely to inspire more of the same from him next time. So, do remember to keep telling him you value him for listening.

You might wish he could read your mind, but you cannot expect him to. This is why it is so important to tell him, again gently, what you need.

Marcia Naomi Berger,

Without empathy, your parenting approach may be damaging your child's growth and self-esteem.

 In my therapy training, I learned of Carl Rogers’ groundbreaking work with empathy, and I was struck by the power of empathy in fostering growth and independence in others

. And I learned the opposite is true – we can cripple and damage a person’s growth when we belittle or demean what they think and how they behave (narcissists do terrible damage to their children because of this lack of empathy).  Empathy – the ability to stand in another’s shoes and understand in your heart what the other individual is feeling and thinking, and validating it without judgment or condemnation  - is essential to good parenting.

Kathy Caprino,  

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR BRAIN FOR EMPATHY

These studies show that empathy can be thought of as skill we can practice and improve. Here are six daily (or weekly) ideas Krznic suggest for cultivating empathy....

Switch on your empathic brain. Recognise that empathy is at the core of human nature. Empathy isn’t just something you are born with. Most people can expand their capacity for empathy — both cognitive and emotional empathy — by practising mindful attention towards other people’s feelings and experiences.

Make the imaginative leap. Make a conscious effort to step into another person’s shoes. Acknowledge their humanity, their individuality and perspectives. Try this for both your friends and your ‘enemies’.

Seek experiential adventures. Explore lives and cultures that contrast with your own. “Next time you are planning a holiday, don’t ask yourself, ‘Where can I go next?’ but instead ‘Whose shoes can I stand in next?’” suggests Krznaric.

Practice the craft of conversation. ...
Travel in your armchair.  ...
Get curious about strangers..