How to Raise an Empathetic Child: What the Research Says

Empathy — the capacity to understand
and share another person’s emotional
experience — is one of the qualities
most strongly associated with kindness,
strong relationships, moral behavior,
and psychological wellbeing across
the lifespan. It is also one of the
qualities that parents most want for
their children — and one of the least
understood in terms of how it actually develops.

The research on empathy development
in children is specific and actionable.
This article covers what empathy actually
is, how it develops across childhood,
what builds it, and what the daily
practices are that make the biggest difference.

What Empathy Actually Is

Empathy is not a single capacity —
research identifies several distinct
components that develop at different
rates and through different mechanisms:

Affective empathy — the capacity
to feel what another person is feeling,
to share their emotional experience.
Research by Jean Decety at the
University of Chicago on the neuroscience
of empathy finds that affective empathy
involves the activation of the same
neural systems in the observer as
in the person experiencing the emotion —
we literally feel what we see others feeling.

Cognitive empathy — the capacity
to understand what another person
is thinking and feeling, to take
their perspective, to see the world
through their eyes. This is sometimes
called theory of mind — the understanding
that other people have different
thoughts, feelings, and perspectives
from our own.

Empathic concern — the motivation
to respond to another’s distress
with care and helping behavior.
This is the component most directly
linked to prosocial behavior —
the child who not only feels and
understands another’s distress
but who is moved to do something about it.

Research by C. Daniel Batson at
the University of Kansas on empathy
and altruism finds that empathic
concern — feeling for rather than
simply feeling with — is the component
most strongly associated with genuine
helping behavior. Building empathic
concern is therefore the most
important goal of empathy education.

How Empathy Develops Across Childhood

Research on empathy development
identifies a consistent developmental sequence:

Infancy: Even newborns show
rudimentary empathic responses —
they cry in response to other
babies’ cries, a phenomenon
researchers call emotional contagion.
This is the earliest precursor
of affective empathy — feeling
with another — and it is present
from birth.

Toddlerhood: Between ages one
and three, children begin showing
genuine prosocial responses to
others’ distress — offering comfort,
bringing objects, patting and
hugging distressed others. Research
by Carolyn Zahn-Waxler at the
National Institute of Mental Health
finds that these early prosocial
responses are present in children
as young as fourteen months and
represent a genuine precursor
of empathic concern.

Preschool years: Between ages
three and six, cognitive empathy —
the capacity to understand others’
perspectives — begins to develop
as theory of mind emerges. Children
begin to understand that others
have different feelings and perspectives
from their own — a cognitive
revolution that transforms
empathic capacity.

School age: Between ages six
and twelve, empathy becomes
more sophisticated — children
can take multiple perspectives
simultaneously, understand that
people can feel different things
from the same situation, and
extend empathic concern to people
they do not know personally.
Research by Martin Hoffman on
empathy development finds that
school-age children begin developing
what he calls “empathy for another’s
life condition” — the capacity
to empathize with the circumstances
of people in general, not only
those immediately present.

Adolescence: Adolescents show
adult-level empathic capacity
in many respects — but research
also finds that adolescent empathy
is significantly affected by
peer influence and social context,
with empathy sometimes suppressed
in peer group contexts where
showing care is not cool.

What the Research Shows Builds Empathy

Empathy modeling by parents.
Research on empathy development
consistently identifies parental
modeling as the most powerful
influence. Children whose parents
express genuine empathy — toward
the child, toward other family
members, toward strangers —
develop stronger empathic capacity
than those whose parents model
emotional indifference or dismissiveness.

The modeling needs to be genuine.
Performed empathy — expressing
concern the parent does not feel —
is not effective. Genuine empathic
response, witnessed consistently
by the child, is.

Empathic parenting — being
empathized with. Research on
the relationship between experiencing
empathy and developing empathy
finds a consistent connection:
children who are empathized with —
whose emotional experience is
consistently noticed, acknowledged,
and validated by their parents —
develop stronger empathic capacity
than those who are not.

This finding makes intuitive sense:
a child who knows what it feels
like to be truly understood has
a visceral understanding of
what genuine empathy provides —
and is more motivated to provide
it to others.

Emotion coaching. Research by
John Gottman on emotion coaching —
the parenting approach of noticing,
acknowledging, validating, and
helping label children’s emotional
experience — finds consistently
that emotion-coached children
show stronger empathic capacity,
more prosocial behavior, and
better peer relationships than
those whose emotions are consistently
dismissed or minimized.

Directing attention to others’
emotional experience. Research
on empathy development finds
that parental practice of directing
children’s attention to others’
emotional states — “look at
that child’s face — how do
you think she’s feeling?”
“your friend seems really sad today —
what do you think is going on for her?” —
builds the other-awareness that
is the foundation of empathic capacity.

Reading fiction. Research by
Raymond Mar at York University
on fiction reading and theory
of mind finds that people who
read more fiction show stronger
capacity for understanding others’
mental and emotional states.
Fiction provides a unique opportunity
to inhabit other perspectives —
to experience the world from
inside someone else’s experience —
in ways that build empathic capacity.

Reading to children and discussing
characters’ emotional experiences —
“how do you think she felt when
that happened?” “what would you
have felt?” — amplifies this
effect significantly.

Inductive discipline. Research
by Martin Hoffman on moral
development finds that inductive
discipline — explaining the
effects of the child’s behavior
on others, appealing to the
child’s sense of empathy and
fairness — builds empathic
concern more effectively than
power-based discipline. “When
you said that, it really hurt
her feelings. How do you think
she felt?” gives the child
the emotional information
that empathic concern requires.

Community involvement and
exposure to diversity. Research
on empathy and experience finds
that children who have genuine
contact with people whose experiences
differ from their own — different
backgrounds, different abilities,
different life circumstances —
develop stronger empathic capacity
than those with more limited
social experience. Volunteering,
community involvement, and
diverse social exposure all
support empathy development.

What Does Not Build Empathy

Forced empathy performance.
Requiring children to say
empathic things they do not feel —
“say sorry,” “say you care
about how she feels” — produces
the performance of empathy
without the experience of it.
Research on moral development
finds that performed empathy
does not build genuine empathic capacity.

Emotional dismissiveness.
Research consistently finds
that children whose emotional
experiences are consistently
dismissed — “you’re fine,”
“stop being so sensitive,”
“there’s nothing to cry about” —
develop weaker empathic capacity,
partly because they learn that
emotional experience is not
worth attending to.

Overexposure to media violence.
Research on media violence and
empathy finds associations between
heavy consumption of violent
media and reduced empathic
responding — likely through
a desensitization mechanism
that reduces emotional reactivity
to others’ distress.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Empathy Lens
What it is: A daily practice
of directing your child’s
attention to others’ emotional
experiences — building the
other-awareness that is the
foundation of empathy.

How to do it: Once each day,
find a natural opportunity
to direct your child’s attention
to someone else’s emotional experience:

During a book: “How do you
think she felt when that happened?
What would you have felt?”

During daily life: “Look at
that person — they seem really
tired today. I wonder what
kind of day they’ve had.”

After a social interaction:
“How do you think your friend
felt when you did that?
What do you think was going
on for them today?”

Keep the tone curious rather
than interrogative. You are
building a habit of other-awareness,
not conducting an empathy test.

Why it works: Research on
empathy development finds
that the consistent practice
of directing attention to
others’ emotional states —
noticing, wondering, speculating —
builds the habit of other-awareness
that is the cognitive foundation
of empathic capacity. The
Empathy Lens makes this
practice a consistent feature
of daily life.

Practice 2 — The Story Empathy Practice
What it is: A reading practice
that uses fiction specifically
to build empathic capacity —
making the connection between
story and emotional understanding explicit.

How to do it: During or
after reading together, ask
three empathy-building questions:

“How do you think [character]
felt when that happened?”
“Why do you think they
made that choice?”
“What would you have felt
in their situation?”

For older children, extend
to the perspective of secondary characters:
“What about [other character] —
how do you think they saw
the same situation differently?”

Why it works: Research by
Mar and colleagues on fiction
reading and theory of mind
finds that the practice of
inhabiting fictional perspectives —
particularly when facilitated
by adult questioning that
makes the perspective-taking
explicit — builds the cognitive
empathy capacity that is
one of the strongest predictors
of prosocial behavior.
The Story Empathy Practice
makes every reading session
an empathy-building opportunity.

Practice 3 — The Empathy Model
What it is: A deliberate
daily practice of expressing
your own genuine empathy
out loud — in your child’s
hearing — modeling what
empathic attention looks like in practice.

How to do it: Once each day,
find a genuine moment to
express your own empathic
response out loud:

“I was thinking about our
neighbor today — she’s been
going through such a hard time.
I really feel for her.”

“I saw something on the news
that really affected me —
those people are going through
something so difficult.”

“I noticed your friend seemed
sad today. I felt for her —
I wonder if she’s okay.”

The expression should be genuine —
actual empathic concern, not performed.
Children detect performed emotion
and learn from genuine emotion.

Why it works: Research on
observational learning and
empathy development finds
that children’s empathic
capacity is significantly
shaped by observing how
the adults around them
express and act on empathic concern.
The Empathy Model makes
your genuine empathic responses
explicitly visible — providing
a model the child can internalize.

The Bottom Line

Empathy is not a fixed trait
that children either have
or do not have. It is a
capacity that develops —
through being empathized with,
through observing empathy modeled,
through having attention directed
to others’ emotional experience,
and through the thousands of
ordinary interactions in which
a parent communicates that
other people’s feelings matter.

The child who grows up
in a family where emotions
are noticed and named, where
others’ experiences are attended to,
where fiction is read and discussed,
and where genuine empathic concern
is modeled daily — that child
develops the empathic capacity
that research finds central
to kindness, to strong relationships,
and to a life lived in genuine
connection with others.

That capacity begins here,
in the ordinary moments
of daily family life,
one empathic interaction at a time.

Sources

Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004).
The functional architecture
of human empathy.
Behavioral and Cognitive
Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100.

Hoffman, M. L. (2000).
Empathy and Moral Development.
Cambridge University Press.

Zahn-Waxler, C., Radke-Yarrow, M.,
Wagner, E., & Chapman, M. (1992).
Development of concern for others.
Developmental Psychology,
28(1), 126–136.

Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., &
Peterson, J. B. (2009).
Exploring the link between
reading fiction and empathy.
Communications, 34(4), 407–428.