In our type of world, true success lies in raising kind hearts. Teaching children how to be nice and compassionate has never been more important. These are not only skills for children to become good individuals but also shape happiness and emotional intelligence.
Studies have shown that children who are taught empathy at an early age will succeed socially and academically, resolve conflicts, and be empathetic human beings in the future. But the question is, how do teachers and parents ensure that they teach children these traits at an early age?
IPSAA Daycare, one of the best playschools in Mumbai, has successfully embedded empathy and kindness into its curriculum. By combining thoughtful activities with caring guidance, IPSAA empowers children to become emotionally intelligent, considerate, and kind-hearted individuals.
In this article, we’ll explore proven strategies to encourage empathy and kindness in preschoolers through examples from IPSAA’s impactful programs.
Why Teaching Empathy and Kindness in Early Childhood Matters
Empathy is the ability to feel and respond to others’ emotions. Kindness is the tendency to be humane, thoughtful, and considerate. They both are qualities that influence children’s personal development as well as their relationships in future life.
Positive Impact of Empathy and Kindness in Preschoolers
Parents often prioritise academics when choosing a daycare. But social-emotional learnings such as empathy and kindness are just as crucial though, to the success of a child.
Here is why an education system centred on social-emotional learning is important to consider:
1. Foster Healthy Social Relationships
Empathy enables the child to see and experience other people’s feelings. The more they notice when other children are frustrated, sad, or joyful, the more empathetic they become.
They become more respectful towards others in their behaviour. It enables them to have healthier relationships, and other children trust them.
In IPSAA, the child also learns to notice when the friend is angry. The teachers demonstrate how to comfort the friend by hugging them, or giving them a toy, or simply by asking, “Are you alright?”
2. Builds Emotional Intelligence
By recognising their own and others’ feelings:
The children know themselves better and are better able to cope with their own feelings. Sympathetic themselves. They are also better at managing:
- Conflict resolution.
- And labelling their feelings more accurately.
IPSAA caregivers use the emotion cards application to assist children in identifying and labelling their feelings in an enabling situation of feeling expression.
3. Encourages Positive Behaviour and Conflict Resolution
Compassion generates good social behaviour like cooperation, sharing, and patience. Conflict resolution learnt through empathy instructs the children to settle differences amicably.
Teachers would perform better if they let children resolve problems through empathic signals like “How would you feel if?” to assume feelings of the concerned party.
4. School and Life Success
Empathy and kindness condition young children to be resilient, school-orientated, and classroom-achieving in the school setting.
When parents search for daycare centres in Mumbai, they should look for centres that emphasise emotional development, as it is important in their child’s development.
Practical Steps to Teach Empathy and Kindness to Preschoolers
IPSAA Daycare employs various steps to share kindness and compassion between the kids. Practical measures teachers can use in school and parents can use at home are described below:
1. Modelling Empathetic Behaviour
Learning is best when the children see adults living their own lives. The adults can use empathic response by hearing, understanding, and replying in feeling behaviour.
IPSAA example: The IPSAA caregivers’ workers are always good listeners. When the child is angry or frustrated, the workers acknowledge to the child what is occurring through the following statements:
“I know you’re angry because your game broke. Let’s fix it together.”
These responses enable children to:
- Appreciate and accept emotions.
- And become kinder to other people.
2. Creating an Emotion-Rich Environment
Labelling and identification of their own feelings enable them to empathise with other individuals.
Feelings Board:
Children place their picture next to a picture of a feeling to identify how they feel on a daily basis. The activity promotes self-consciousness and other consciousness.
Emotion Cards:
IPSAA uses emotion cards as a facilitation tool for introducing children to a variety of emotions such that they are well-acquainted with their vocabulary of emotions.
Homework activity extension for activities turns parents’ focus towards the child’s emotional awareness and regulation.
3. Acts of Kindness
Children also do random acts of kindness like:
Sharing a toy, helping a friend, or being nice to a crying friend is a positive thing to be shared as a foundation of kindness.
IPSAA’s Kindness Chart:
IPSAA prescribes daily acts of kindness to children. There is a follow-up for every act of kindness, a reward, and a feeling of accomplishment.
What Parents Can Do:
Parents follow the same type of chart at home and teach the child to be kind to relatives, siblings, and neighbours.
4. Role-Playing Situations
Role-playing is such an excellent way through which the child takes on a different person and looks at things differently.
IPSAA’s Role-Playing Sessions
At these sessions, kids role-play common situations such as comforting a crying friend or persuading a shy classmate to play. Through this, kids learn to be empathetic and take care of other people.
5. Reading Empathy-Based Books
Books offer children a safe environment where they are allowed to blow off their bad feelings and learn different outlooks.
IPSAA’s Storytelling Sessions
IPSAA incorporates empathy books in their school curriculum. Tales where the characters feel—loneliness, fear, or excitement—give children an opportunity to relate to feelings. Teachers revisit each book so that children have the same decisions and feelings as the characters.
Book Recommendations for Parents:
- “The Colour Monster” by Anna Llenas
- “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?” by Carol McCloud
- “The Invisible Boy” by Trudy Ludwig
Some more Books for Parents by Indian Authors:
- “Why-Why Girl” by Mahasweta Devi
- “Grandma’s Bag of Stories” by Sudha Murthy
- “The Blue Umbrella” by Ruskin Bond
- “Gajapati Kulapati” by Ashok Rajagopalan
- “Boy Who Loved Birds” by Deepak Dalal
6. Encouraging Cooperative Play
Team-play activities also teach children to listen, share, and cooperate together—the definition of empathy.
IPSAA’s Team-Working Activities:
IPSAA provides group activities, such as daily team playing, puzzles, and drawings. To be a team player, enjoy all contributing members, and tolerate and practice patience is what IPSAA teaches. These can even be replicated at home by cooperative games with turn-taking and problem-solving.
7. Embracing Animal Contact
Animal contact has also been discovered to be teaching children tolerance and kindness.
IPSAA’s Animal Awareness Activities
IPSAA has not yet set up an animal shelter building but makes monthly visits to animal shelters on a regular basis and uses the tool of stories or videos showing human interaction with animals. In that manner, children are exposed in a positive way to promote kindness and compassion towards all living things.
IPSAA’s Innovative Approach to Developing Empathy and Compassion
Being one of the top daycare centres in Mumbai, IPSAA is a caring atmosphere where emotional intelligence is the central theme of its learning process. IPSAA’s curriculum includes:
Emotion-Based Learning:
From morning greetings to reading time, children are motivated to express and discuss their emotions.
Values-Based Curriculum:
IPSAA integrates moral values in play, art, and storytelling so that kindness is a part of everyday life.
Community Outreach Programs:
IPSAA also has regular charity sessions where children are involved in giving back to society, developing empathy through exposure.
All these have brought IPSAA on a level with the best playschools in Mumbai, offering emotional development as an added value.
Want to witness these strategies being implemented? Book your visit today!
Selecting the Best Daycare Centres in Mumbai
Parents looking for a preschool or daycare need to weigh some things in a manner to promote the emotional development of the child.
- Emphasis on Emotional Education:
Look for schools that educate children about empathy and kindness as part of a structured curriculum.
- Teacher-Child Interaction:
Observe how teachers respond to children’s feelings. Nurturing and affectionate caregivers are responsible for the socialisation of the child.
- Group Work:
Providing perfect learning environments where empathy can be cultivated, by:
- Cooperative learning.
- Games, and group activities
- Parent Involvement:
These schools that involve parents in the successful learning of the child make home and school a continuum.
At IPSAA daycare, we believe that parents should be both informed and engaged in their child’s learning experience. We initiate different types of activities that enhance the connection between them and their kids.
👉🏻 Know more about IPSAA’s Approach to Family Engagement
IPSAA’s commitment to these values makes it the best choice for parents who need a caring society where kindness and empathy are of the highest priority.
Empathy Begins Early: Start Your Child’s Journey with IPSAA
Becoming empathetic and compassionate preschoolers is a fulfilling profession that molds children into accountable human beings. Parents and teachers can create good beginnings to the emotional life of the child by:
Being a positive role model, building an emotional climate, and promoting acts of kindness.
In IPSAA, the top playschools in Mumbai, is the way it should be, where children learn to:
- Recognise
- Communicate
- And respond to feelings with empathy and compassion.
If you’re a parent who’s looking for daycare centres in Mumbai that nurture emotional development, IPSAA is an excellent choice.
Parents can raise a generation of young adults who are compassionate, empathetic, and emotionally intelligent by working with IPSAA and implementing the same principles in their homes.
Experience the IPSAA difference! Schedule a visit for your child today and see how our nurturing learning environment adds value to your child’s life. Contact us today or visit our nearest centre to learn more!