This month’s newsletter is about sympathy and empathy, and you can catch it over here. What it doesn’t tell you is that while I’m pretty adept at empathy (understanding someone’s feelings) I’m rather rotten at sympathy, which means you actually feel the same things along with them. I usually get it, but don’t often feel it.
As parents, we’re naturally sympathetic with our kids. Of course I feel terrible when they get hurt, and do my best to make them feel better. I’m likely to hurry them towards getting back into the game though, rather than keeping them on my lap for any longer than necessary. I’m a “do you really need a bandaid?” kind of mom.
How sympathetic are you? Is it different with your kids than with others? Do you offer kisses and bandaids or do you wait for them to be asked for? I think I’m really at the low end of the spectrum, but I do think that becoming a mom has made me a bit more able to enter into other people’s feelings than I did before. How does it work for you?