Should a 4 year old show empathy?

[rumtumtugger]

I had an interesting discussion with my just-turned-4 year old yesterday about saying sorry and putting yourself in someone else's shoes. She said that she would say sorry if she'd done something naughty like hitting her sister but only if she was found out - and if she had gotten away with it she would feel happy. So far, so 4-year-old. However, she doesn't at all understand the concept of empathy or guilt, as we talked further about how her sister would feel sad when she was hit and she just didn't 'get' it.

Is this normal? When does this start to develop?

I think it's a hard concept for 4 year olds to grasp. Dd1 is just turned 4, she can sometimes show empathy and does understand the principle but nursery say she is quite advanced in this and most don't.

I think it's more that 4 year olds are exceptionally egocentric. I had a similar discussion with 4yo ds on Friday. He told me he pushed another boy over. I said that wasn't nice, his friend would have been sad and hurt. He said it was ok because nobody had seen it so he wasn't told off! He also said that being pushed over wouldn't have bothered his other friend, and so ensued a different conversation about different people's limits and that it's never ok to hurt someone else. I havr no idea if any of it sank in, but I'm assuming it's fairly normal as in lots of other ways he's kind, considerate and affectionate. He also tries to help or console others who are upset (sometimes). I think empathy is probably only emerging at this age.

How do you help them to develop it? Just 'look at her face, she looks sad' kind of thing?

Children find it hard to show or feel empathy often becasue they lack the words to describ enad label the actual feeling, if that makes sense?
They may know what sad feels like but nor know how to name it.

And she clearly doesn't understand why she's gotten a consequence (eg loss of treat) as a result of hurting her sister - she just understands that she has the consequence and feels sorry for herself, rather than thinking about her own actions. Should I just continue to apply consequences even though she doesn't understand why??

I think there should always be consequences when hurting someone else. But it should be coupled with an explanation so with ds I'll ask him how he would feel if someone else pushed or hit him, or took something that was his. Invariably he'll say 'sad and angry' so I'll then say 'so how do you think your friend felt when you did that?' He's getting it slowly I think.

Ok thank you all

3.5 year old DD certainly knows empathy, and gets very upset when she hurts someone even accidentally (so there aren't always consequences for hurting someone else!), I don't know if she would necessarily be able to articulate it in a discussion, or particularly "get it" though.