Stephen Covey used to start conversations with “How are you?” He would listen intently to the response and then ask about family, work and life. In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” he wrote, “When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.”
Mohsin Hamid, an award-winning British Pakistani author, has defined empathy as “finding echoes of another person in yourself.”
Our children have an amazing capacity to show empathy when someone is hurt, or struggling, or when a friend has a different belief or idea or experience from their own.
We have frequent opportunities to exhibit empathy in our lives and teach it to our children. How often do we take advantage of those opportunities?
What empathy is