Empathy

When it comes to behavior problems, I am a big believer in teaching empathy. Teaching someone to put themselves in the place of another person teaches them how that other person might want to be treated.

Teaching empathy starts first with talking. A talk about how other people feel can go along way. Augmenting this with writing and storytelling can formalize the thought process. Here are some ideas for teaching empathy:

• Write both sides of a 'bullying' story from the point of view of the bully and the one being bullied
• Write a story about the school day from the teacher's point of view.