“Imagine you see a baby laying in the street, and the baby is crying. What do you do?” – these are the lines from the highly popular book ‘Hit Refresh’ by Satya Nadella. Satya Nadella was asked these questions during one of his interviews at Microsoft. I admit I could not read beyond these lines in the book, because I found it so thought provoking(and yes, such questions should be asked in all interviews! :))
The Internet defines “empathy” as the ability to understand what another person is going through and putting yourself in their shoes. After putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes, you also care and help them.
Our life today:
When we are young, we are always taught to study well in school and college and get good grades(this goes for Indians residing in any country! :)) This is followed by job hunting, salary expectations and climbing the career ladder. In all this hustle and bustle of life, where can we learn empathy?
How to inculcate empathy?
Some people are naturally empathetic from a young age – while for others, it is an acquired trait. These are some ways to inculcate empathy from a young age:
- It is always the concept of “Monkey see, Monkey do” that works in all parent-child relationships. If parents talk about caring and helping anybody and demonstrate it as well, it will go a long way in shaping a child’s empathetic behavior.
- Empathy can be included in school curriculum as well. “Kindness board” and external empathy learning programs will introduce the concept of empathy and help them practice it too
- Parents can also show their human side and talk about their difficulties and they got through that with their children (once kids are mature enough to grapple with those things)
- Parents and caregivers can also provide ample opportunities to practise empathy
These are some points that I could think about for cultivating empathy in children. Do you have any points to add to the above list?
And what would you do when you see a baby crying on the road? 🙂
This post is for alphabet ‘E’ for #BlogchatterA2Z 2021 by Blogchatter.
Read the the previous post here
Your points are so pertinent. Children learn more watching than being told how to do.
Loved your post. Will have to read the book by Satya Nadella though
Deepika Sharma
It is a lovely book…you definitely should read it…
Helping young children to develop a strong sense of empathy is beneficial as it helps them to build a sense of security and stronger relationships, as well as encourages tolerance and acceptance of others. Parents can show random acts of kindness, emotional coaching with examples, reading stories of kindness, praising the empathetic behaviors, can be some examples to teach children empathy. I agree it should be included in school curriculum.
Empathy is certainly what the world needs more and more especially now that we are in such a prolonged ongoing disaster Here from AtoZ https://poojapriyamvada.blogspot.com/2021/04/eucatastrophe-newnormal-a2z.html
All the relevant points …loved it and I’m going to read that book