Looking at events going on in June we came across ‘Empathy Day UK’ and, without exception, everyone in the office admitted they had never heard of it before, but loved the sound of it.
We have copied the following information from the empathylab.uk website:
‘Empathy is our ability to imagine and share someone else’s feelings and perspectives…. Empathy is made up of 3 elements:
- Feeling – when we resonate with other people’s feelings
- Thinking – where we use reason and imagination to work out how someone else feels
- Acting – where we are inspired to help others, having experienced what they are feeling’
“If you are interested in how you can foster children’s well-being and resilience, there is good evidence that empathy should be a key priority” Dr Robin Banerjee, Head of Psychology, University of Sussex’
I think as professionals in early years, children or young people, we are always encouraging children to be empathetic to other’s needs, but we don’t always give it the title it deserves.
When we are encouraging early years to share – we are encouraging them to be empathetic.
When we talk about how 2 children feel after they have had a fight – we are teaching them to be empathetic
When we are teaching in class to a group of teens how another group may be feeling – whatever the topic, be it a war-torn country, poverty, famine – we are teaching them empathy.
We might not use the word, we might think we are working on ‘sharing’, or ‘emotions’ or ‘geography – how the world works’, but the thread within all of these is empathy.
Empathy Day was founded in 2017 to inspire the rising generation and to drive a new empathy movement. Empathy is a vital human force and Empathy Day aims to help understand and experience the transformational power of empathy through stories.
Each Empathy Day the organisation runs online events and fun home-based activities to help children read, connect and act using empathy.
If you wish to know more, or take part, please click on the link here which will take you to their website.