In everyday life we see a lot of different behaviors associated with empathy: consolation, helping, compassion, to name just a few. Most of these behaviors are not shown by human adults only, but also by human children and apparently by other animals. Thus, the question arises, can all these behaviors be called empathic? Is empathy a unitary phenomenon or do we need to distinguish rather various types of empathy? The variability will be demonstrated by discussing the development of human children with two specific questions: At what age are they able to show compassion, consolation, and targeted helping? And in how far might their understanding of the other be different from that of adults? First, I will shortly introduce a model of 5 steps children undergo during typical development. Second, I will argue that these steps and what differentiates them can inform us on the abilities underlying the complex phenomenon of empathy and it invites to distinguish types of empathy. Splitting empathy into several underlying abilities does not only inform us about the phenomenon itself, but can enable empirical research to develop experimental designs for these specific abilities and thereby different aspects of empathic behavior.