In India one can still see people putting atta(wheat flour) along treks as they go for morning walks. This is for the ants. No one plucks leaves or even touches plants after dusk for 'it is sleeping time for them'. Throwing stones at birds or picking eggs from their nests is considered taboo. Cows are fed grass. Earthen pitchers and hand fans, made of leaves,cane etc are still distributed by the middle class people during summers to the poor. Many a pmerchants open a piao(water kept in earthen pitchers during summers on road sides for travellers during the entire period of hot summers.These and many such practices were prevalent ,and still are, though less commonly seen now.
The children imbibed this empathetic behaviour when they saw their parents and grand parents caring for plants, insects, birds and animals and in the courtesies extended to the guests visiting the house.
It is for each one of us to exhibit an empathetic behaviour in our daily life . Children will automatically imbibe such values.