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Collaborative post. Compassion is where we can relate to another’s situation and want to help them. It’s something that should be developed in us all from childhood and the responsibility to do this naturally falls on us parents. If we nurture this within our children they grow up to be kind caring adults which is what we really do need more of these days.  I have teamed up with a prep school in East Sussex to share a few easy to follow tips on how to raise a compassionate child.

How to Raise a Compassionate Child

Teach Children to Be Respectful

Letting disrespect go unaddressed generally in daily life can teach your child that behaving in this way is okay and doesn’t have any repercussions. This goes for our children’s behaviour too. If they do something unkind, it helps to remind them that that behaviour is not acceptable.  Where possible avoid allowing negative influences into their life as your child will pick up on the bad behaviour. In the same way, it’s important to highlight when others do something nice by verbalising it and how it makes you feel.

Teach Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is something that doesn’t really get much attention but can help your child tremendously with their mental health and confidence. Self-compassion looks at the way that we treat and talk to ourselves. Most of the time while we’re compassionate to others, yet we are over critical of ourselves. It’s important that we treat ourselves with the same level of kindness and dignity as not doing so can affect mental health and confidence over time. It can tell a person that they’re not good enough which can stop them from achieving their dreams and their full potential.

You can teach your child about self-compassion by praising them so that they are able to internalise how important and valued they are. You should also teach them about self-care. By looking after ourselves better we become much happier and confident in ourselves.

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Understanding Facial Expressions

While it can take time to develop emotional intelligence, you can start early on by teaching your child about what the different facial expressions mean. This can help them when making conversation by making sure that they don’t say anything insensitive and can understand social cues. The MR Men books are good for explaining this and you can help your child to remember them by drawing out the different faces together.

Have Patience

As mentioned before, it can take some time for children to fully understand emotions. A child at the age of 3 will be able to recognise what different emotions look like but won’t be able to fully comprehend why they are felt. Be patient, it took you time to learn this too. They will learn about emotions in time and with your patience and guidance, they will learn to become more compassionate people.

Having read my post about how to raise a compassionate child, did you have any suggestions to add? If not, which suggestion did you like most?

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