How Empathy Towards Children Can Create Health Problems For Parents

Good things are hardly ever free of cost. Who would've guessed that this included something so positive such as empathy? Studies show that when parents empathize with their children, it has a negative impact on their health.

Even though a parent's unconditional love and support hold a lot of significance in a child's life, there is a cost that has to be paid for it, as studies suggest. According to Independent, a study at Northwestern University and University of British Columbia investigated how a more empathetic parent was more prone to acquiring high levels of systemic inflammation.

This is when your immune system releases masses of proteins that spread throughout the body and can have an effect on the interactions between cells. The experiment was done on 247 parent-adolescents relationships over a 14 day period to observe the psychological and physiological effects of parental empathy.

The relationship quality, amount of stress, depression and the time spent together were taken into account while analyzing the results. Blood samples were also taken to measure systemic inflammation.

Children also compared their parents' harsh behavior with the love and support the parents provide. In general, however, it was concluded by the research that people feel better about themselves when they're more empathetic.

But in order to achieve this happiness, the Huffington Post reported that parents had to press down their own emotions, which increased the level of stress inside them and they frequently showed signs of inflammation. The children, however, were all happy and dandy.

There is no as such solution that can be advised for this as no parent can deprive their child of love and support and it's also an important part of the child's healthy upbringing. Perhaps the only comfort that can be given is that at least good parenting is done.