Julie and Gretchen have expressed a common concern. Expressing empathy is a tough skill to learn! It is definitely not what comes naturally, especially when we are about to administer a consequence. Our natural inclination is to let our kids have it and then administer a consequence!
Work on developing one key phrase that you can use over and over again. It's a signal to your kids that the problem is theirs, and it's also a signal to you to turn the problem back over to your kids.
I really like the phrase, "That's too bad!" You have to be so careful with this phrase because if you say it with anger or sarcasm it's no longer an empathetic statement.
If my kids come to me with "So and so did such and such to me." I always start with "That's too bad! What are you going to do about it?"
If my kids come to me with an owie, I say "That's too bad!" and then we hug and kiss it better.
If a kid comes to me with almost any problem, I can almost always say, "That's too bad!"
If a kid does something wrong to somebody else, I can also say, "That's too bad!" before I administer a consequence.
The only time I try to deviate from my one empathetic response is if somebody is truly troubled or hurting about something. Then I try to be empathetic by trying to imagine how they must be feeling and reflect that back to them. If a child comes to me and is sad because their friend is mad at them at school, I usually say something like, "It must make you feel really sad that Amy said mean things to you at school today." Just try to reflect back what you're hearing them say or what you're seeing them feel. Lots of times, kids just want to be heard and understood. Just empathy all by itself fixes lots of problems.
Empathy is like all of these other skills we're learning. It takes lots and lots and lots of practice.
For more information, see the following articles on the love and logic website:
http://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/empathetic.html
http://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/oneliners.html
http://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/hug.html
Good luck this week!
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