Empathy

This month we are having conversations and experiences to help us develop the social-emotional skill of Empathy! We are using this definition at school:
Empathy: the ability to understand and connect to the feelings of another.
Empathy is an important skill for creating connected and kind communities. It is critical to our relationships both personal and professional. There is a huge need for Empathy in our world because, as anxiety increases in our culture, Empathy decreases. Even though we have lots of digital connections, we need a lot of training on in-person communication and understanding! So, we are working to develop a few key skills in order to live more empathetic lives. First, developing an “emotional vocabulary” to make sure we have the words to understand and describe what we are feeling personally. Second, being able to connect with others based on their feelings even though we may not have the exact same story or perspective as someone else. Finally, we will think about how listening and sharing help create more Empathy in our classroom and the world. There will be some powerful activities and some amazing conversations inspired by people like Brenè Brown and Dr. Oz. It will be a wonderful experience for your child and (hopefully) you!