Why it is important for children to understand other people feeling and how you can encourage and support this

Question

Why it is important for children to understand other people feeling and how you can encourage and support this

Answer 1

Young children are naturally focused on themselves and their own feelings, but they don't always understand what the feeling is.  They need help to come up with the words to describe what they're feeling.  If I see a child who seems upset, angry, sad, happy, whatever,  I'll use words to describe what I see.  "I see you're smiling.  You look very happy today.  Did something happen to make you feel that way?"  Later I might say, "Oh, look.  Mark is crying.  How do you think he feels?  Sad?  Why do you think he's sad?  What happened?"  Most children pick up on this very quickly and will soon be saying to me, "Suzy is crying.  I think she's mad at Mary because Mary took her doll."

Understanding other people's feelings is a very important life skill.  Without that skill, it's very difficult to relate to others, and it's much easier to learn that skill when we are very young.  Teaching young children to read people's faces and behaviors gives them an invaluable tool which they will use all their lives.

Answer 2

We tell our children in preschool that feelings are very important.  If a child takes a toy away, I'll have them look at their face "Look at Johnny's face, how do you think he feels? How can we make him happy again?" - we need to give the children the words sometimes but happily, the words come to them the longer we practice this.  Understanding other's feelings is a life skill we all need and the earlier the better in my book.  Preschool is where we learn everything we'll ever need to know!!