Children's Hospital Colorado

8 Tips for Raising a Caring Child

Three school age girls smile and hug each other.

One of our goals as parents is to instill values in our children that help them make the world a better place. This might include talking to them about bullying, racism or being nice to others, and that starts with cultivating empathy at a young age.

Empathy is critical for a child's healthy social development. Kids struggle with other kids who can't understand how they're feeling, and social development can be difficult if a child can't stop and think about how something makes someone feel. This can be especially challenging for a neurodivergent child, who might struggle with reading others' emotions.

Children have the capacity for empathy as early as ages 3 or 4. However, it is a developmental skill learned through social interactions in early childhood and early elementary school, and continues all the way through middle school, high school and early adulthood.

Empathy is developmental, and it's partially related to the development of the frontal lobe, which controls things like logical thinking and planning, reading social cues and impulse control. This means empathy fully develops in kids around the same time the frontal lobe develops, which is typically around late adolescent years or early adulthood.

Here are some expert tips for how parents can help children cultivate empathy during this developmental stage:

Model the behavior yourself

The most important way parents can instill empathy in children is by modeling it themselves.

Use appropriate examples from your own life to exemplify what empathy looks like. For example, if you come home at night and had a conflict with your boss that day, talk about it in a way that shows empathy. Talk through the emotions you felt and the emotions you identified in others. Let your child ask questions and ask questions back to them like "How do you think he was feeling?" or "Why do you think he acted that way?"

Identify and label emotions

As soon as kids are 3 or 4, start asking your child what their body feels like as a way to label emotions. If they're feeling or seem scared, help them identify how this feels in their belly or elsewhere in their body. Making physical connections to feelings helps children label emotions. Then, when they start their early elementary years, they can better understand what those emotions look like in other people.

Use non-personalized examples

Movies or books are a good way to show examples of different emotions. It can be hard for a young kid to distance themselves from their own emotional reactions and think about what another person feels. Sometimes it helps build those skills if you take the personalization out of it. If you're watching a movie or reading a book and there's a character feeling a strong emotion, stop and have a conversation about their feelings.

Volunteer with your child

Exposing kids to situations that are different than their own is one way to build empathy and broaden worldviews. It's important for parents to do a self-assessment of what they feel comfortable talking about before volunteering with their children.

Expose children to pets or animals

Being around pets and animals is a good way to help young children identify emotions and connect with others. Pets can be very emotional, and there's a slight depersonalization with animals since it's not a peer or sibling. If your dog is jumping up on you when you get home, help your child put into words that's how we know they're happy.

Ask questions about conflicts

As your child gets older, parents can help them understand different perspectives in challenging social situations. Once they calm down, keep it curious, not accusatory. Don't ask, “What did you do?” but instead ask, “That sounds like a really intense situation. Any idea what's going on with that other person? It sounds like she had a strong reaction.” Keep the conversation collaborative, not confrontational, to work through the problem.

Highlight the challenge of technology

Texting and social media can cloud the ability to recognize how the person on the other end feels. Remind your child that with only words, you can't see facial expressions or hear the tone of their voice. Caution them to slow down in their reactivity to written communications and recognize they're not getting the full picture of that communication. And vice versa, ensure your child knows that when they send written communications to others, they should be cognizant that the person on the other end can't see their non-verbal cues.

Use holidays as an opportunity to teach giving

Holidays can be a great time to work in creative ways to develop empathy in kids. You can include your child in present shopping for a sibling or friend to introduce them to that joy of giving when they see someone open a gift they were part of picking out.

Parents can also encourage their child to get ready for gift giving season by going through their current belongings and filling a box of toys they're no longer interested in. Take them with you to donate the box to kids in need and have a conversation about why there are kids who don't have the same things they have.


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