What you are building · three activities, ages three to four
Reading the other person
Empathy at this age is built by swapping places, not by being asked how somebody else feels. A child who has just walked a rope path with their eyes closed, trusting a voice, understands something about being the guide that no conversation delivers. Put a child on both sides of the same situation and the reading of other people comes free.
Both sides of the same situation
Name it while it is happening. Feelings get a name most easily when the face is still on. Mirror Feelings Copycat works because the child is making the expression themselves while they hear the word for it, which is a much shorter route than being shown a picture and asked.
Swap the roles. Walking with eyes covered and then guiding somebody who is walking with eyes covered are the same activity from two sides, and children who do both stop shouting at the walker within about a minute.
Tell what happened to somebody. A story in the right order needs somebody it happened to, and putting cards into a sequence gives a four year old a person to follow through a day that is not their own.
The thing not to do is ask a child how somebody else felt in the middle of a difficult moment. That question is answerable calmly, later, and it is not answerable at all in the ninety seconds after something went wrong.
What it looks like at each age
At three
Recognises happy, sad, cross and frightened on a face, and will copy an expression readily. Reads faces much better than situations.
Name feelings out loud as they pass across the day, including your own, without attaching anything to them.
At four
Starts predicting: he will be sad if we take that. Gets it right about a situation they have been in themselves.
Ask what they think will happen next in a story rather than in a real argument.
At five and six
Can hold that another person knows something different from what they know, which is a large step and arrives around here.
Play games where one person has information the other does not. Guiding a blindfolded walker is exactly that.
What is worth doing this week
Swap the roles on one game this week. Whatever your child has been doing, let them be the one who gives the instructions instead, and take their part yourself.
Then name three feelings a day out loud, in passing, with no question attached. Children pick up the vocabulary far faster when it is not aimed at them.
The activities on this shelf
One names the feeling on a face, one follows somebody through a story, and one puts a child on both sides of trusting another person's voice.
- Mirror Feelings CopycatFaces copied in a mirror, feelings named3 yrs / Under 5 min / Cards you draw
- Blindfold Rope Path WalkA rope followed across the floor with eyes closed4 yrs / 5 to 10 min / Household only
- Story Sequence CardsCards put in order, then told as a story4 yrs / 5 to 10 min / Household only
This is the smallest shelf in the library and the one growing next.
Nearby shelves
Empathy sits right beside cooperation and speaking, and all three grow together.