Parents who frame discipline as others’ suffering raise more empathic children

Evidence

In contrast, the parents of prosocial sons cultivated empathic-based control, portraying the consequences of aggressive conduct in terms of the injury and suffering it brings to others. In handling problems of misconduct, parental socialization practices that direct attention to the suffering inflicted on others foster development of empathic perspective taking and prosocial behavior (Bandura & Walters, 1959; Hoffman, 2001; Mussen & Eisenberg, 2001). A sense of empathic self-efficacy at involving oneself in the plight of others both promotes prosocialness in the form of helpfulness, sharing, consoling, and supportiveness and curbs socially injurious conduct (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Gerbino, & Pastorelli, 2003). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 650