In a world where we’re all wondering what jobs our children are going to have when they grow up, (more now than ever due to the rapid expansion of AI) what skills are really going to matter? We believe it’s human skills or the so-called soft skills that will be irreplaceable, highly valuable and important assets for future employment.
Many parents and early-years teachers are noticing the same thing: children are finding empathy harder. There can often be more outbursts of big emotions, quicker conflicts, and a greater difficulty seeing things from another child’s point of view.
This doesn’t mean children are becoming less kind. Empathy is a skill that develops gradually and the world children are growing up in today, makes that development more challenging. The good news is that empathy can be strengthened, especially when we pair it with something just as important: early critical thinking skills.
What does empathy look like in the Early Years?
Empathy is not something children are born with as a fully formed skill. Research shows that it develops in stages:
- Babies notice emotional cues and react to distress, but they don’t yet understand what causes feelings.
- Toddlers may comfort a crying friend, but still struggle to understand motives or intentions.
- Preschool children begin to develop cognitive empathy—the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings—alongside growing language and thinking skills.
In other words, empathy needs time, experience, and guidance to grow.
Why is empathy seemingly declining?
1. More Screens, Fewer Social Cues
Children learn empathy by reading faces, voices, and body language. When much of their interaction happens through screens, these cues are reduced. Research links high screen exposure with lower social understanding and fewer opportunities to practise empathy.
2. Less Unstructured Play
Cooperative and gently guided play teaches children how to communicate, negotiate, take turns, adapt, build and repair relationships. When play or learning is rushed or too highly structured, children miss out on these natural learning moments.
3. Big Emotions Without Enough Tools
Young children experience strong emotions, but their self-regulation systems are still developing. Without support, emotions can quickly turn into impulsive behaviour rather than thoughtful responses.
Why Empathy Needs Critical Thinking
Empathy is not just about feeling—it’s also about thinking. We often think about Expressive Empathy where we feel another’s pain and experience an emotional response to another person’s emotional distress. The development of Cognitive Empathy happens in conjunction with the development of critical thinking skills. A person doesn’t need Expressive Empathy in order to develop Cognitive Empathy and this can often be the case particularly among our neurodivergent community.
To truly understand another person, children need to:
- pause before reacting
- notice what’s happening
- think about why someone might feel that way
- consider more than one possibility
These are early critical thinking skills. Research shows that children with stronger thinking and self-regulation skills are better at perspective-taking and show more prosocial behaviour.
Critical thinking helps children move from: “He did it on purpose!” to “Maybe it was an accident.” This is the shift in thinking where empathy can then grow.
When children learn to slow down and reflect, they are better able to understand others’ emotions and respond kindly rather than reactively. This means that helping children “think about what happened” is just as important as encouraging them to “be kind.”
Practical Ways to Build Empathy and Thinking Skills
At Debutots we use our original, carefully crafted stories to immerse children in an imaginary world. We use drama techniques enabling children to step into another’s shoes which allows playful exploration of feelings, consequences of behaviour and relationships with others. In our safe, imaginary world children build an understanding of themselves and a sense of community as a group as they share and take turns. By encouraging children to jump into our fictional worlds, where they recall a story and discover and speak for themselves, their thinking, reasoning and memory skills blossom and grow.
In everyday life we can continue this learning – here are a few ideas for how we can weave the development of cognitive empathy into our children’s lives…
1. Think out loud
Children learn by listening. If their trusted grown up notices something and “thinks about it out loud” then children will start to model this.
- “She looks upset. I wonder what happened.”
- “You’re frustrated—let’s think about what might help you to feel better.”
2. Encourage them to step into another’s shoes by asking gentle perspective-taking questions.
Really importantly, here, there are no wrong answers – curiosity matters more than correctness. If you observe something happening or if your child tells you about something that has happened to another child then ask questions, for example:
- “How do you think he felt?”
- “What else could be going on?”
- “What may have made him say that?”
3. Focus on feelings; not just rules
Instead of “Don’t do that,” try:
- “I understand you wanted the toy, but taking it has made him feel sad. What can we do now?”
- “If you say those words how do you think that person will feel? How would you feel if they said that to you?”
4. Use stories as empathy practice
Books are powerful tools – you can question throughout the story as you are reading it.
- “Why do you think the character did that?”
- “How did she feel when that happened?”
5. Find time for cooperative play
Provide opportunities for turn-taking, sharing materials and solving problems together as these activities can provide some of the richest lessons in empathy.
6. Encourage children to pause
Even a short pause helps:
- “Let’s stop and look again.”
- “Take a breath—what happened first?”
- “Think for a moment and start again”
Finally… do we believe children are inherently less empathetic?
No, we don’t, however; children are learning in a fast, complex world with multiple distractions and in some cases a high level of screen time and structured learning time. Empathy grows best when adults intentionally support it by helping children slow down, think, and reflect and children are given a more purposeful yet flexible framework to develop this skill.
By pairing empathy with early critical thinking skills, parents and teachers give children the tools to:
- understand others
- manage big emotions
- solve problems peacefully
- build strong, healthy relationships
These are skills that last far beyond the early years—and they are skills children need now more than ever.
