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Empathy and sympathy allow us to walk in someone else's shoes. They give us the ability to understand another person's perspective or situation and to offer emotional support.

Empathy refers to being able to identify with the emotions that someone else is feeling.
Imagine two babies in a room. One starts crying, triggering the same reaction in the other. This is empathy in its most basic form: sharing another's emotion to such an extent that you have a similar or identical feeling, even to the point of mimicking the other's response.

Sympathy is a feeling of concern on behalf of someone who is distressed or needy.
Flash forward a few years: a toddler sees your sad expression and walks over to give you a hug, or a teenager sees a homeless family on TV and wonders what she can do to help. The sympathy felt by the toddler and teenager in these examples builds on empathy, but unlike empathy, sympathy is not a similar or identical emotion. Instead, it allows one person to notice, understand, and respond to distress in another.

Why are empathy and sympathy important?
Empathy and sympathy:

• allow children (and adults) to see others' perspectives


• form the basis for altruistic behavior: helping someone even though it does not benefit you, or doing good simply for the sake of doing good


• help people recognize feelings, both their own and others'


• lead to self-control and the ability to deal with emotions appropriately

Children who are able to develop qualities of empathy and sympathy tend to be more tolerant and compassionate, more understanding of others' needs, better at handling anger, and more likely to have good social skills and relationships.

Empathy and sympathy are at the core of compassion, caring, and concern for others. Both come into play in almost every area of life: school, work, friendships, parenting, and romantic relationships. Feelings are the language and tools of sympathy and empathy: noticing feelings in yourself and in others, describing them accurately, and expressing them. Empathy and sympathy form the heart of communities.

In his work on emotional intelligence, psychologist Daniel Goleman found that children who excelled at reading people's feelings nonverbally were popular, emotionally stable, and performed better in school, even though their IQs were no higher than those of other students. Children who are raised to be empathic and sympathetic individuals are more likely to voluntarily act in ways that benefit other people.

What happens when empathy and sympathy are missing?
Empathy and sympathy are also notable when they are missing. Children who lack these qualities may be more aggressive and more likely to have trouble with their social relationships. At the extreme end of the spectrum, people with no empathy for others have the complete lack of remorse that characterizes psychopaths, rapists, and child molesters.

As a parent, what can you do?
Sympathy and empathy may come more naturally to some children than others, but parents can play a tremendous and constant role in teaching children to understand feelings and to try "walking in someone else's shoes." By setting a good example and by talking about and exploring feelings with their children, parents can help them build skills that will come in handy in every aspect of life, from school to work to relationships.