Empathy is the ability to understand how someone else is feeling, even when you arent in the same situation. It is about sharing an emotion with someone, or feeling the way they feel, even if you arent directly affected by whatever is causing their situation. Empathy is an important skill for kids to develop as it helps them to establish positive friendships and relationships, reduces conflict and misunderstandings, and leads to helping behavior, kindness, and even greater success in life in general. Here are some ways to explain empathy to kids:

• Empathy is when you are able to understand how someone else might be thinking or feeling about a situation.
• Empathy is like putting yourself in someone elses shoes and trying your best to imagine what they might be going through.
• Empathy is the ability to share someone elses feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that persons situation.

To help kids develop empathy, parents and teachers can use age-specific strategies such as describing and labeling emotions, teaching healthy limits and boundaries, and encouraging kids to note the body language of others and guess how they might be feeling.