We think a lot about how our children feel and how they can process and express their own emotions. But there’s another part of that conversation: understanding how OTHER people feel.
This is something children have to LEARN – that other people’s minds might think differently from my own. They spend their first few years believing that anything they know, or like or dislike is the same that everyone else knows, likes or dislikes.
A classic experiment is to show a child a box that looks like it will have crayons in it, but when it is opened, there are actually paper clips inside. Well, that’s unexpected! They know the secret of the box, and until they are about 4 yrs old, they will assume that everyone else knows the secret too.
It takes some neurological development to get to the point of understanding that people can believe something differently than you do. But it also takes experience, and that’s where you can come in… Helping them get them out of their own heads and to start thinking about how other people’s minds work:
- When you are reading or watching a video, talk about how the characters are feeling and why they are feeling that way. This doesn’t have to be super heavy; it could be something as simple as asking ‘how do you think Corduroy feels’ when Lisa picks him off the shelf in the classic book.
- Encourage pretend play, which is almost literally living in someone else’s shoes for a moment.
- Talk about other people’s – or your own – emotions with them. Hmmm, that person may have been rude and cranky because there he had to deal with so many customers at once. Or I wonder what was so funny that made that person laugh so hard.
Being able to see another person’s perspective, is one of the most essential elements to being a part of the human experience. It’s how we learn to share, how we learn to be empathetic, and how we can better manage conflict.
(Hmmmm… maybe this is something LOTS of us – not just little kids – need to learn how to do!)