Empathy is a core life skill. Here’s how to teach it to your kids | Canada Voices

Ask a Child Psychologist offers insights and advice on navigating youth emotional and mental well-being. It is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical advice.

At a time when many parents are worried about children’s anxiety, social disconnection and capacity to manage conflict, one core skill offers an answer: empathy.

Empathy is the ability to notice, understand and respond to another person’s feelings with care. It sits quietly at the centre of how children form friendships, navigate disagreements and understand themselves in relation to others. It shapes family life, classroom climate and eventually success at work and in close relationships.

Crucially, empathy is not something children either possess or lack – it is a set of skills that can be learned. Long-term studies have found that social-emotional learning programs are linked to benefits that extend well beyond the classroom, including higher graduation rates and lower rates of mental-health and behavioural difficulties.

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Education policy in many jurisdictions reflects the importance of teaching empathy. In Canada, provincial curricula emphasize social-emotional learning goals alongside academics, including emotional awareness and regulation, perspective taking, healthy relationship skills and collaborative problem-solving. (Some countries go even further: In Denmark, students devote regular classroom time to emotions, relationships and group problem-solving, reflecting a belief that learning to understand others is as essential as reading or math.)

At home, however, empathy is often treated as a hope rather than a foundational skill that can be taught. We tell children to be kind, to think about others’ feelings, and to use their words – assuming that empathy will emerge with time and good intentions. We rarely pause to consider a more practical question: What are the specific skills that make empathy possible, and how are those skills learned, practised and strengthened in everyday family life?

Through my clinical work with children and families, I’ve learned that empathy can in fact be taught by building up kids’ capacities in four key areas.

1. Feeling listened to

If we want to increase kids’ ability to respond with empathy, we must help them feel heard first.

We often ask children to show empathy at precisely the moment they feel least understood themselves. When a child is upset or angry, we quickly pivot to, ‘How do you think the other child felt?’ While well-intentioned, this skips a crucial step. Empathy begins with active listening. When children feel genuinely heard – when an adult reflects back what they are feeling without judgment or interruption – their nervous systems settle. Only then can they think flexibly and consider others.

Often it is as simple as saying, ‘That sounds really disappointing,’ or ‘You felt left out.’ Listening is not agreement; it is acknowledgment. And acknowledgment makes empathy possible.

2. Understanding and naming emotions

Once a child feels heard, adults can help them make sense of their emotions.

Emotional literacy – the ability to identify and name feelings in oneself and recognize them in others – is a cornerstone of empathy. Children experience emotions long before they have language for them, and those emotions often show up as behaviour. When adults offer calm, non-judgmental language – for example by saying, ‘You seem frustrated; I wonder if you felt embarrassed?’ – children begin to organize their inner world. This matters because empathy depends on recognition: Children who can name their own emotions are far better equipped to notice them in others.

3. Seeing things through another person’s perspective

Perspective taking – the ability to consider another person’s experience – develops slowly. It cannot be rushed or forced.

Rather than insisting children “see the other side,” adults can invite curiosity by asking questions such as “What do you think was going on for the other person? How might that have felt?” Importantly, this does not require children to abandon their own feelings. A child can feel hurt and still learn that someone else may have felt hurt as well.

4. Collaborative problem solving

Empathy becomes visible when children learn to resolve conflict collaboratively. Instead of focusing on who was right or wrong, adults can guide children toward questions such as “What does everyone need right now? How can we fix this in a way that feels fair?” Collaborative problem-solving is not intuitive; it is coached. With repetition, children begin to internalize the process.

Model empathy at home

All of this rests on a simple truth: Children learn empathy less from what we say than from how we behave. They are watching how adults listen during disagreement, handle frustration, name emotions and repair relationships after conflict. Some of the most powerful lessons come from imperfect moments followed by repair: “I didn’t listen well earlier. I’m sorry. Can you tell me again?”

In the end, empathy does not grow from lectures or one-off conversations. It develops through repeated experiences of being heard, understood and guided. The research is clear: This work matters for children’s long-term well-being. If we want children who can live well with others, empathy must be treated not as an add-on, but as a core life skill–taught deliberately, modelled consistently and practised daily, at school and at home.

Dr. Jillian Roberts is a research professor of educational psychology at the University of Victoria. She is also a practising registered psychologist in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. She specializes in child and adolescent development, family therapy and inclusive education.