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Gentle parenting is a helpful concept until a parent confuses sympathy with empathy.

Sympathy tempts parents to enable, perceive their child as a victim, and shield them from disappointment.

Empathy means resonating with a child's feeling state to truly understand them, so they are not alone in it.

The premise of gentle parenting is great. Respecting and understanding the child while calmly providing empathy is the general gist. Yet, this approach may backfire and create significant issues if a parent confuses sympathy with empathy.

A chronically sympathetic parent is more likely to raise a child who lacks accountability, who manipulates, and who often quits when things get hard because they lack resilience.

What Confusing Sympathy With Empathy Looks Like

When a parent confuses sympathy with empathy, they tend to lower expectations, bend the rules for their child, enable, and perceive their child as a “victim” in almost every situation.

You can tell this is happening when the parent makes excuses for their child and rarely holds them accountable. For example, after their child throws a giant fit and either breaks things or becomes aggressive, the parent says sympathetic things like, “He didn’t eat breakfast. Poor guy. He is hangry…” or “She was mad because her friend said something hurtful. Her friend is the toxic one.” Excusing destructive behavior because the child was dealing with difficult feelings is rarely the right answer.

However, calmly honoring feelings but firmly correcting behaviors, in a direct and concise manner, may be the right choice. For example, saying, “You’re mad. I get it, but you cannot throw things. Go pick up your water bottle and put it away.” This parent validates the child’s feeling state but holds them accountable for acting out and immediately instructs them to fix it. The parent empathizes with the child’s emotion but corrects their bad behavior.

When a parent pities a child who is acting out, they tend to view them as the “victim” in the situation instead of who they really are… the aggressor. This compels them to let their child off the hook because it is easy. They escape the toughest part of parenting, which is remaining calm, empathetic, and following through. When they repeatedly excuse and enable, they start to placate the child in place of addressing negative behaviors. Because the child’s tantrums are excused, they become worse and more frequent. So, instead of a progression of maturation and increased emotional regulation, the child continually pouts, is aggressive, openly defiant, destructive, and manipulative.

Feeling sorry for the child also tempts a parent to constantly swoop in to “save the day.” They wish to protect the child from experiencing disappointment, so they manipulate the system, intimidate teachers, and persuade coaches to give the child what they want, in lieu of the child experiencing disappointment and learning how to cope with it. It is also a fairly selfish act on the parents’ part because they get the satisfaction out of being the child’s “hero.” Unfortunately, this is detrimental to the child’s self-efficacy and resilience because they now believe that they cannot fix their own problems. They demand to be saved and rescued by this parent when they do not get what they want.

Conversely, empathizing with a child who is disappointed or going through something hard is selfless because the parent must remember what disappointment feels like. It is uncomfortable, but they “go there” emotionally to authentically understand the child and to communicate this understanding to them, so the child is not left alone in it. In doing so, the child feels safe and continues to talk to the parent about how they feel when they are struggling. This allows the parent to remain close to the child.

An Example of Empathy in Practice

A mom hears quiet sobbing down the hall. She walks past her daughter’s bathroom and glances in. Her 10-year-old daughter is balled up on the tile floor; her face is soaked with tears.

The mom quickly joins her on the floor and asks, “Honey, what is going on?"

Her daughter, who is supposed to be getting ready to go to her friend’s pool party, looks up and says, “I hate the way I look in my bathing suit.” Between her quiet sobs, her daughter says, “None of my friends have a big belly like me. I am the only one.”

What's a Parent's Role?

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The mom rubs her shoulder and thinks about what to say. She remembers that empathy is usually the right choice. So, she recalls how it feels to be ashamed of her body. Gently, the mom says, “It hurts to not like the way you look. I get it. It stings. It really does.”

The daughter snuggles closer to her mom. After a few moments, she asks, “But you are skinny. How do you know?”

The mom smiles and says, “Oh, honey, you know how I feel about my wrinkles.”

Her daughter looks up and says, “Oh my gosh, you do hate your wrinkles. You do get it.”

The mom continues to hug her daughter. After a few minutes, she asks what would help. Her daughter stands up, blows her nose, and says that she feels better and that she wants to go to the party. She politely tells her mom to “hurry up.” Her mom chuckles and agrees.

In this scenario, the mom empathizes. She does not shame her daughter for feeling the way she feels with statements like, “Don’t say such things! You are beautiful! Look in the mirror and say it!” These responses would only make the child feel more alone. Nor does the mom perceive her daughter as the victim and attempt to blame someone else. For example, “Did Taylor tease you for your weight? I know she has before! That’s it. I am calling her mom! This is not acceptable!”

The Impact of Using Empathy

The empathic approach immediately helps the child. The child knows what they feel is normal because their parent resonates and understands. It is both healing and empowering because the child can trust what they feel, their ability to say it, and their capabilities in handling it. Alternatively, sympathy tempts parents to excuse, enable, and see their child as the victim, which instills a victim mentality in the child and disrupts their ability to be resilient.

If this topic remains confusing, you can find many more examples of empathic parenting in my book, How to Raise a Secure Child, Parenting With Empathy.

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