Empathy: an amazing resource for family connection and softening conflict

Parenting from Your Heart, by
Inbal Kashtan, is a short, easy
read that provides motivation
and practice with empathy in a
family setting.

Empathy means understanding how someone feels and what they're wanting well enough to feel touched by it. It's a way of relating that most of us do well enough when there's no personal involvement. (For example, when identifying with a character in a movie or a book.)

But when complications arise, such as a conflict, a sense of urgency or tension, a time constraint, a sense of competition for resources, or flaring tempers, empathy gets challenging. And parents face these sorts of complications constantly. Yet being able to maintain a sense of empathy (sometimes people call it being heard or understood or "gotten") can go a long way to promoting family connection and harmony, even when a mutual solution isn't apparent.

Some necessary ingredients for empathy
1) Everyone's needs are important, including yours. In order to have the energy to empathize with a child or another person, one generally needs to have a sense that there will also be a chance to attend to one's own needs, even if not right now. In order to do that, it may be helpful to empathize with one's self briefly. Take a moment, keep breathing, and reflect on what one wants for one's self. In the context of parenting, this can be challenging because at that same moment, a child may be clinging, crying, yelling, or otherwise clamoring for the attention they need. Still, the airplane wisdom prevails: Put on your own oxygen mask first, then help your child. With practice, it may often just take a moment to regain a sense of self-awareness and sufficient confidence to proceed to empathize with the other person.

Nonviolent Communication: A
Language of Life, by Marshall
Rosenberg, is a source-book
of Nonviolent Communication and
contributed this understanding of
empathy.

2) A general sense of what's going on and a relaxed attitude toward other people's feelings. Empathy doesn't mean participating in another person's urgency, anger, or misery. It means caring while clearly understanding that those feelings are occurring in the other person. From this vantage point, one is most able to provide empathy.

3) A sense of choice. If one tries to provide empathy because of a sense of having to, the interaction will naturally carry that tone to it, and provide much less of a sense of caring to the other person. So instead, consider why you want to be there for the other person.

4) Practice developing the skill to look for the underlying desires and longings that motivate our actions and feelings. In the U.S. and in English, there is a well-developed vocabulary of judgments about both the self and others. However, there are few invitations to practice searching for the common ground of desires we can all relate with. The books in the images on the right come highly recommended from many parents in the DC area and elsewhere. They offer insights and support in becoming more aware and attentive to the common desires (or needs as they are often called in the tradition of Nonviolent Communication) we all share. They are available for purchase and are often on discount at PuddleDancer Press, some even in audio book form.

Respectful Parents Respectful
Kids: 7 keys to turn family conflict
into co-operation.

Empathy as looking for underlying desires
Marshall Rosenberg developed the ideas of Nonviolent Communication and empathy as expressed here. Following graduate work with renowned psychologist Carl Rogers and professional practice as a psychologist, Dr. Rosenberg has spent his life helping parents, teachers, children, and others around the world build stronger and warmer relationships. He says that empathy is "listening to what people are needing rather than what they are thinking about us."

When trying to empathize with your child or partner (or anyone, for that matter), after you've become aware of what feelings they're experiencing, you can search out the needs that may be at play. Look for something that is both positive (meaning reaching toward something) and general enough that you can relate with wanting it.

Empathic or compassionate communication can seem at times both simple and challenging. For a series of helpful video examples of this process, see the Conflict Hotline video (from Bay NVC) below.

For more info:

Capital NVC - provides workshops and training in the DC area as well as information about local practice groups 
NotJustSkin.org - provides workshops and free multi-media lending library
Center for Nonviolent Communication

See also
Expressing love in ways that touch our children