Reply #35: I remember a study from years ago

[woo me with science]

that tried to correlate kids' empathy development with different parenting styles when the kid hurt another kid.

According to the study, the kids with the least empathy had parents who either went ballistic screaming at them about what they had done, or just reasoned with them very calmly.

The kids with the most empathy had parents who were moderately emphatic and emotional when scolding them. The researchers hypothesized that some emotional intensity drew the kids' attention to what they had done wrong and alerted them of the importance of putting themselves in the shoes of others. Not enough emotional emphasis, and they didn't see hurting the other kid as highly important. Too much screaming, and they got worried about their own safety or parental relationship and couldn't focus on the other kid's feelings.

It was more complicated than that, because you also had to take kid personality factors into consideration. Sensitive kids needed less emotional impact than less sensitive kids to get the message...but the results were interesting nonetheless. We have emotion for a reason, and to take it out of parenting seems pretty unnatural.