Promoting Empathy through Perspective Taking

Why we need to teach perspective taking skills at every age

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Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I’m sharing a continuation of an IG LIVE I did on building perspective taking as an important tool in cultivating empathy. In today’s world, the need for empathy is more urgent than ever. Before we can expect empathy to grow, we need to build perspective taking. 

Perspective taking is a complicated skill for children. As I mentioned in the video, it requires first having awareness of your own thoughts and feelings, then understanding the thoughts and feelings of someone else, and finally recognizing that those aren’t always the same. 

So, what are other ways to support perspective taking in our children? Here are 5 of my favorite tips.

• From an early age, talk about feelings. Label them for your infant or toddler, talk about how to recognize feelings of others, and discuss feelings and thoughts of characters in stories. 

• Work through conflict resolution with your child. Talk about how the other person may be feeling, what may have motivated them to act a certain way, and help them as they start to recognize that their interpretation of the story is valid but might be different.  For older children, you can even have them act out the role of the other person they are arguing with (for example a sibling or friend) and try to tell the story from their side.

• Play pretend! At all ages (from that play kitchen to Shakespearean performances in high school) taking on the role of others can help us to build perspective taking skills. When we think, act, speak, and inhabit another person’s role, we learn what it truly feels like to be in a different life, job, or circumstance.

• Learn and read about cultures, traditions, and experiences outside of your own. The more we learn about others, the better we can come to appreciate the vast human experience, and take the perspective of those we have not yet met.

• Approach new situations with curiosity. Model for your children (at all ages) that you are eager to learn and grow in your own understanding. Show them how your assumptions may be wrong, how much there is to discover at every age, and the power of admitting when you’ve made a mistake.

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