The latest research has shown that humans naturally empathize with others. Young babies as small as 14 months have been shown to try to help adults in need. Yet parents can have a big impact on whether their child becomes increasingly or decreasingly empathetic.

Specialists believe that bullying, and indeed other forms of violence can be prevented by teaching children to use their natural tendency towards empathy from an early age. For the parent, being able to achieve this can often mean changing their own learnt behaviour from when they were children.

The core practices around teaching empathy are linked to those of punishment. Hence there is a need to learn how to change your child’s behaviour without resulting to using punishment technics. All parents know that this is easier said than done. Dacher Keltner of the University of California, suggests that: "Instead of starting from the assumption that you have to beat the badness out of a child, turn on that empathy and compassion switch.”

In practice, this means that you need to help children understand their own feelings when they misbehave, then they will be more able to understand other’s feelings and less likely to want to hurt others.  Mary Gordon, founder of Roots Empathy, suggests that ”we always think we should start with, 'How do you think so-and-so felt?' But you will be more successful if you start with, 'You must have felt very upset.' The trick is to help children describe how they felt, so that the next time this happens, they've got language. Now they can say, 'I'm feeling like I did when I bit Johnny.' "

Another technic that can help achieve understanding of empathy in a child is non-violent communication. Marshall B Rosenberg is considered to be one of the thought leaders in this space and runs the Centre for Non-Violent Communication (www.cnvc.org). His seminal work is Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.

There may be other issues that your child is facing too that may be upsetting them. This may be causing them to misbehave or to be violent or unpleasant towards others. It’s important in this context to help your child explain what’s bothering them, and this may be done through holding or crying, especially with young children. A child who can empathize and can explain what’s making them unhappy or stressed will be a happier child.

Having an empathetic child will lead your family to live a more harmonious life, where you are all happier and more content. A more Zen life.

Information from this article came from Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982190-2,00.html#ixzz0n2yqSyuP

For more insight into this topic, see these articles:

	Ten tips on how to react when your child misbehaves
	Should you punish your child?
	How do children think?