Kindness is one of those qualities that almost every parent
wants for their child — and one of the least understood in
terms of how it actually develops. Most parenting advice
on the topic amounts to “model kindness” and “praise kind
behavior,” which is not wrong, but is far from complete.
The research on how kindness develops in children is more
specific, more surprising, and more actionable than most
parents realize. This article covers what the evidence
actually shows about raising kind children — what works,
what doesn’t, and why some of the most common approaches
may be less effective than we think.
What Kindness Actually Is
Before discussing how to build it, it helps to be clear
about what kindness actually is — because it is not the
same as politeness, compliance, or good manners, though
it is often confused with all three.
Kindness is the genuine motivation to contribute to
another person’s wellbeing — to notice that someone
is struggling and to want to help, not because you
have been told to, not because you will be rewarded,
but because you care. Researchers sometimes call this
prosocial motivation — the internal drive toward
behavior that benefits others.
The distinction between genuine kindness and performed
kindness matters enormously, because the research on
what builds each is very different. Genuine kindness
is built through internal motivation. Performed kindness
is built through external reward and punishment. And
research consistently finds that the two are not only
different — external reward can actually undermine the
internal motivation that genuine kindness requires.
Are Children Naturally Kind?
One of the most striking findings in developmental
psychology is that the answer appears to be yes —
at least in early form.
Research by Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello at
the Max Planck Institute found that infants as young
as fourteen to eighteen months spontaneously help
adults who are struggling with tasks — handing
objects that have been dropped, opening doors for
someone whose hands are full — without being asked,
without being rewarded, and before they are old enough
to understand social rules about helping.
This finding — replicated across multiple studies and
cultures — suggests that the motivation to help others
is not something that has to be installed in children
from scratch. It appears to be part of our basic
human equipment.
What changes this natural prosocial motivation —
what causes it to flourish in some children and
diminish in others — is largely shaped by experience,
by the social environment, and by how adults respond
to children’s early helping behavior.
What the Research Says Builds Genuine Kindness
Warm, secure attachment. Research on the relationship
between attachment security and prosocial behavior
consistently finds that children who are securely
attached — who have experienced reliable, warm,
responsive caregiving — show significantly more
spontaneous helping behavior, more empathy, and
more genuine prosocial motivation than those with
insecure attachment. The mechanism appears to be
internal: a child who feels genuinely loved and
secure has less need to focus all available
attention on their own safety and is more free
to attend to the needs of others.
Empathy development. Research on the relationship
between empathy and kindness finds that the capacity
to accurately perceive and share another person’s
emotional experience is one of the strongest
predictors of prosocial behavior. Empathy is not
a fixed trait — it is a capacity that develops
through experience. Research by Jean Decety at
the University of Chicago on empathy development
finds that it is built through: being empathized
with by caregivers, seeing caregivers empathize
with others, and having the emotional vocabulary
to name and understand emotional experience.
Explanation over punishment. Research on what
parenting approaches build genuine prosocial
motivation — as opposed to compliance —
consistently finds that explanatory discipline
is more effective than punitive discipline.
When a child does something unkind, explaining
why the behavior hurts the other person —
specifically, from the other person’s perspective —
produces significantly better internalization
of prosocial values than punishment alone.
Research by Martin Hoffman at New York University
on the development of moral internalization —
the process by which children develop genuinely
held values rather than externally enforced
rules — found that inductive discipline
(explaining the effects of the child’s behavior
on others) consistently produced stronger moral
development than power assertion (punishment)
or love withdrawal.
Meaningful contribution. Research by Richard
Weissbourd at Harvard’s Making Caring Common
project finds that children who are given genuine
responsibilities — real contributions to family
and community life that matter and are not
simply token chores — develop stronger prosocial
motivation than those who are not. The experience
of genuinely helping, and seeing that help make
a real difference, builds the internal sense of
oneself as a person who contributes — which is
the foundation of kindness as a character trait
rather than a performed behavior.
What Does Not Build Genuine Kindness
Rewarding kind behavior with external rewards.
This is perhaps the most counterintuitive finding
in the kindness research. Research by Mark Lepper
at Stanford University on the overjustification
effect finds that providing external rewards for
behavior that was already intrinsically motivated
consistently reduces the intrinsic motivation over
time. A child who helped spontaneously, who is
then rewarded for helping, learns to help when
rewards are available — not to help because they
care. The reward replaces the internal motivation
rather than strengthening it.
This does not mean never acknowledging kind
behavior. It means the acknowledgment should
focus on the effect of the behavior on the
other person — “look how happy that made her” —
rather than on rewarding the child for performing
it — “what a good girl you are for sharing.”
Praising the child rather than the behavior.
Research by Carol Dweck and others on the effects
of different types of praise finds that praising
a child’s character — “you are such a kind person” —
is actually more effective at building prosocial
identity than praising specific acts —
“that was a kind thing to do.” The character
praise builds an internal identity as a kind
person, which the child then acts consistently
with. This is the one form of praise that
research supports for building genuine rather
than performed prosocial behavior.
Requiring forced apologies. Research on apology
and moral development finds that forced apologies —
“say sorry right now” — produce the performance
of remorse without the experience of it. A child
who is required to apologize before they feel
any genuine remorse learns that apology is a
social performance required by adults, not an
expression of genuine care for the person
they hurt. Waiting for genuine remorse and
then supporting its expression — “it looks
like you feel bad about what happened.
What do you think you could do?” — produces
more genuine moral learning.
What This Looks Like in Daily Life
The daily practices that research identifies
as most effective for building genuine kindness
are not dramatic. They are small, repeated,
ordinary moments:
Naming others’ feelings in daily life.
“Look at that child — she seems sad.
I wonder what happened.” This simple practice
of directing children’s attention to others’
emotional states builds the habit of other-awareness
that is the foundation of empathy.
Reflecting the effect of the child’s kindness
on others. “Did you see how much better
she felt after you helped her? You made
a real difference.” This focuses the child’s
attention on the impact of their kindness —
which builds intrinsic motivation — rather
than on the reward for performing it.
Modeling kindness explicitly. Not just being
kind, but naming it: “I’m going to help our
neighbor carry those groceries — she’s had
a hard week.” Children learn what kindness
looks like, and that it is valued, by watching
the adults around them practice it and
talk about it.
Giving children genuine responsibilities.
Not token jobs, but real contributions:
helping care for a younger sibling,
contributing to a family decision,
participating in community service
in a way that allows them to see
the actual impact of their help.
The Bottom Line
Children are not born unkind and taught
to be kind. They are born with a natural
prosocial motivation that flourishes when
it is nurtured by warm attachment, empathy
development, meaningful contribution, and
the internal experience of making a real
difference in another person’s life.
The goal is not to produce a child who
performs kindness when adults are watching.
It is to raise a person who is kind when
no one is watching — because that is who
they are, not because it is what is required.
That kind of kindness is built quietly,
in the ordinary moments of daily family
life, over many years. It is built by
being kind yourself. By explaining why
kindness matters. By giving children
the genuine experience of their own
care making a difference.
It is built, above all, by treating
your child with the same kindness
you hope they will show the world.
Sources
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2006).
Altruistic helping in human infants
and young chimpanzees. Science,
311(5765), 1301–1303.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and
Moral Development. Cambridge
University Press.
Weissbourd, R. (2009). The Parents
We Mean to Be. Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.
Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett,
R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s
intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward.
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 28(1), 129–137.
Decety, J., & Svetlova, M. (2012).
Putting together phylogenetic and
ontogenetic perspectives on empathy.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience,
2(1), 1–24.
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