Growing Empathy
Bring out your child's compassion with these helpful tips.
Everyone can develop empathy, but it needs to be taught. Parents can model kindness with their own little everyday acts. Help plant the seeds of empathy by:
- Asking the other children to notice when one of their peers is sad or hurt, and imagine why they’re feeling that way. What might they do to make that person feel better? Praise all efforts at empathy.
- Inviting children to stand in someone else’s shoes. Literally! Switch shoes and imagine what the person whose shoes they’re wearing would say and do. (No meanness allowed!)
- Playing a “compliments” game: Pick one person as the “star of the day.” Others can come up with one nice thing to say about that person. The next day, choose a new star until everyone has had a chance.
- Hosting an Oscar (the Grouch) party: The nicer Oscar’s friends treat him, the grouchier he gets. Choose one person to play Oscar and act as grumpily as possible. Then, pile on the niceness! In the real world, there are lots of grouches—but even grouches appreciate kindness!
- Helping the larger community. Brainstorm a project that you can do together to make your community a better place for everyone: saving coins for a local animal shelter, recycling newspapers, or collecting books or cans of food to give to a family shelter. Take a picture of everyone who helped with the project to include with the donation.
Bea’s Block Kindness Adventure Color & Activity Guide
Activities and coloring pages for children that celebrate kindness.
Resolving Hurt Feelings with Rosita and Friends
Misunderstandings and hurt feelings can be opportunities to build friendships and develop important social skills.
Understanding Bullying
Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content, Rosemarie Truglio, PhD, examines bullying as it affects young children, and shares ways to handle—and prevent—it.
Building a Connected Community
Take a course on ways to help children and families get ready for school and life—together!
Little Neighbors
In this webinar, you’ll learn how you can use our “Little Neighbors” initiative to help children and their families discover their power to make their communities—and the world—a happier, healthier, safer place for everyone.
Caring Communities
In our course Caring Communities, you can explore the ways to embed storybooks, printables, videos, and digital games in your work with everyone in your neighborhood.
Roads to Resilience
A course highlighting some of the best assets from topics across SesameWorkshop.org with customized approaches, and tips and tricks on using these resources in your work with caregivers and their children.
