This paper reviews research on the assessment of parental empathy and considers data relevant to the relationship of parental empathy to other parental and family attributes. Three studies that relate parental empathy to the child's adjustment and personality characteristics, including empathy in the child, are then examined. The first study focuses on parent and child correlates of parental empathy with elementary-aged children. The second study concerns the same relationships in younger samples, and the third examines the relationships of maternal behavior and empathy to preschool children's empathy. These studies have yielded findings consistent with the descriptive model that places parental empathy in the context of a matrix of parental child rearing attitudes and behaviors that have a significant influence on the child's adjustment, affective dispositions, and cognitive functioning. The data from these studies indicate that the effects of parental empathy are largely restricted to the effects of maternal empathy on daughters. A new model of empathy and its role in family dynamics is presented, and implications of the findings for training components of the Head Start Program are discussed. Appended are 23 references and related materials. (GLR)