By Adia Dawn, NCSP, LSSP: ACE Academy Director of Counseling & Assessment
April 22, 2021
I recently read the book I Hear You by Michael S. Sorenson and it got me thinking about how valuable it is for children to feel listened to, heard, and understood. My biggest takeaway from this book is the immense power of validating and offering empathy when communicating with others. I wanted to share how this concept can be applied to communication and interactions with your gifted children or child.
What does it mean to validate and offer empathy?
Listening to another person with an open mind and curiosity about their emotions helps them feel heard and understood. Feeling heard and understood is a central need for all children. Offering nonjudgemental feedback to show empathy and understanding can help your child feel like you get them. Offering validation means highlighting to your child that whatever they are experiencing is ok and accepted. Providing feedback that helps them feel understood helps them know that you are listening and giving them your full attention.
Examples of validating responses:
“Wow, that sounds really hard.”
“Oh man, that really is sad.”
“Seriously, that makes a lot of sense.”
“How frustrating that must be for you, I’ve been in a similar situation before.”
"I get that, it makes sense to feel the way you do."
Examples of invalidating responses:
”You’ll be ok.”
“Well, it could be worse.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure things will get better.”
“I know exactly how you feel, it’ll be fine.”
“You know it’s not really that big of a deal.”
Why are validation and empathy important when communicating with your gifted child?
Validation can be extremely impactful when interacting with gifted children because you can help them identify their emotions and offer justification for feeling those emotions. By helping them identify and validate their feelings they learn to accept their emotions, which allows them to process their emotions more easily. Gifted children tend to be sensitive and experience emotions intensely, therefore, it is important to listen to and respond to them in order to help them accept and process their emotions with awareness and ease.
4 Tips for Developing Empathy
Be Curious
When a child is experiencing a difficult emotion it is helpful to think of times you’ve felt that way or had a similar experience. This puts you into a state of empathy and allows you to be more curious about how they are feeling and experiencing the situation. Trying to think about how you might feel in the situation if you’ve never been through what they’re going through is helpful because it allows you to consider how they’re feeling through imagining how you would feel.
Give Eye Contact
Connecting with your child through direct eye contact is a powerful tool. It helps them feel seen and heard.
Identify Your Own Emotions
The better you get at understanding your own emotions and feelings the more capable you will be at helping your child identify and understand theirs.
Avoid Placing Judgment on Emotions
When we judge our own emotions or the emotions of others we block acceptance of that emotion. Therefore, it’s important to notice any judgment around emotions in order to keep from suppressing or avoiding them.
If you want to learn to communicate with empathy while validating emotions follow this 4 step process:
Listen to your child empathically (don’t try to fix it)
Validate their emotions (even if you don’t fully agree or understand them)
Offer encouragement (and advice if they give you permission to do so)
Re-Validate their emotions (help them feel like you get how they’re feeling)
Through practicing these techniques and ways of interacting with others we create relationships that are more open and trusting. Building our own emotional awareness is essential in order to be a supportive guide for your children in understanding and accepting their own emotions. May you find strength in your ability to get curious, listen to understand, and validate your child. The outcomes may surprise you!
Stay curious,
-Ms. Dawn