Bullying. Can Empathy Training Help?

Empathetic behavior will not just reduce bullying in our schools, but will also help our children build healthy relationships. There is no debate about widespread negative impact of bullying in our school system. Empathy as a skill is a learnt behavior and therefore it can be taught to the school children to help respond to the situation of bullying. The researchers from the University Of New Hampshire (UNH) state, teaching children empathy can help reduce bullying. Along with a hands on training on Empathy, the participants will learn to implement the training in their own schools. Our comparison group, using post-test only questionnaire noted that children with empathy training were less likely to bully or engage in bullying than those who had not completed (p=0.00) empathy training. The authors believe that empathy is essential to developing and maintaining healthy relationships