How Stories Teach Children Empathy

Your child snatches a toy, and the other child bursts into tears. You ask, "How do you think she feels?" and get a blank look, or a shrug. Empathy, the ability to notice and care about what someone else is feeling, does not arrive all at once. It grows slowly, and parents look for ways to help it along. Stories are one of the gentlest. A story lets a child stand inside someone else's sadness, fear or relief for a few minutes, safely, and then talk about it. So how do stories build empathy in children, and which stories help most? Here is what research you can check says, a simple routine for tonight, and Islamic stories that teach it beautifully.

The short answer

• Stories give children practice at reading minds. In one study, preschoolers who had been exposed to more storybooks were better at understanding what other people think and feel.
• Stories with people in them may teach kindness more directly. In another study, preschoolers shared more after a sharing story with human characters than after the same story told with animals.
• The talk around the story matters. Naming feelings and asking "why did he do that?" is a large part of how a story turns into empathy.

What the research says, honestly

Psychologists call the ability to think about other people's thoughts and feelings "theory of mind", and it develops a great deal around the age of four. Researchers in Canada tested 55 children aged 4 to 6 on it. To measure how many stories each child had met, they asked a parent to pick real children's authors, books, films and TV shows out of a list that also contained made-up names. Children whose parents knew more children's books and films did better on the tests of understanding others' minds, even after taking the child's age, vocabulary and family income into account. Knowing children's TV did not show the same link (Mar, Tackett and Moore, 2010, Cognitive Development, research summary from York University). The authors are clear that this is a correlation: it does not prove that stories caused the difference.

A second study looked at behaviour. Researchers at the University of Toronto gave 4 to 6 year olds stickers and a chance to share some with another child. Each child then heard one of three books: a story about sharing with human characters, the same story with human-like animals, or a book about seeds. Afterwards, children who heard the human story shared more, and children who heard the animal or seed books did not (University of Toronto press release, on Larsen, Lee and Ganea, 2017, Developmental Science). It is one study, but it suggests that young children take a moral lesson more readily from people they can recognise as people.

The researcher Natalia Kucirkova has set out how storybooks could build empathy: children imagine their way into a character's position, characters who are different from the child are especially valuable, and an adult's talk about thoughts and feelings during reading plays an important part. She also notes that books are one route to empathy among several, and that claims about books "teaching empathy" still need stronger evidence (Kucirkova, 2019, Frontiers in Psychology). So the fair summary is hopeful but modest: stories give empathy room to grow, and you are the one who helps it grow.

A ten-minute empathy story routine for tonight

• Pick a story with a feeling at its centre. Someone sad, scared, left out or in need. The Islamic stories below are full of them.
• Pause at the feeling. Stop for a moment and ask, "How do you think he feels right now?" Give your child time to answer.
• Name it if they cannot. "I think she felt lonely." Children learn the words for feelings by hearing them.
• Ask what someone noticed. "What did the prophet see? What did he do next?" Empathy starts with noticing.
• Bring it home. "Have you ever felt like that?" or "Who could we help like that tomorrow?"
• End with a dua for others. Ask your child to make a short dua for someone who is sad or unwell.

On tired nights, an audio story can carry the telling while you do the asking. Sukun Kids is our app: calm, narrated stories of the prophets, companions and great women of Islam, and the full story of Prophet Yusuf (AS) is free. Sit with your child while it plays, and save one feelings question for the end.

Islamic stories that teach empathy

Prophet Musa (AS) at the well. Tired and far from home, Musa (AS) reached the well of Madyan and saw a crowd of shepherds watering their flocks, and two women holding theirs back. He did not walk past. He asked, "What is your circumstance?" They explained that they waited until the shepherds had finished, because their father was an old man. So he watered their flocks for them, then went back to the shade and made dua (Surah al-Qasas 28:23-24). Notice, ask, help: it is empathy in three steps. Read more on the Prophet Musa (AS) page.

The ant and Prophet Sulayman (AS). When Sulayman (AS) and his army came to a valley of ants, one ant called out, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not" (Surah an-Naml 27:18). The little ant cared about the others, and even thought kindly of the army: if harm came, it would be because they did not see. Sulayman (AS) smiled at her words and thanked Allah (27:19). Young children love this one. See the Prophet Sulayman (AS) page, and for the other animals of the Qur'an, animals in the Qur'an for kids.

A father's grief, and a brother's forgiveness. When Prophet Yaqub (AS) lost his son, he said, "Oh, my sorrow over Joseph," and his eyes became white from grief (Surah Yusuf 12:84). Older children can feel the weight of that love. Years later, when Prophet Yusuf (AS) stood before the brothers who had wronged him, he said, "No blame will there be upon you today. May Allah forgive you" (12:92). Ask your child how the brothers must have felt in that moment. The full story is on the Prophet Yusuf (AS) page, and Yaqub's (AS) on his own page.

The Prophet ﷺ and the crying baby. Allah describes the Prophet ﷺ in the Qur'an: "Grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind and merciful" (Surah at-Tawbah 9:128). Children can see it in a small moment. He said, "When I stand for prayer, I intend to prolong it but on hearing the cries of a child, I cut it short, as I dislike to trouble the child's mother" (Sahih al-Bukhari 707). He thought about how the mother felt, even in the middle of prayer. (Qur'an translations are Saheeh International, as shown on Quran.com.)

Empathy by age

• Ages 3 to 4: one feeling, named simply. "The ant was worried for her friends." Act it out with toys and let your child be the one who helps.
• Ages 5 to 7: ask why. "Why were the two women waiting?" Children this age can start to see a situation from someone else's side, especially when you ask.
• Ages 8 to 10: mixed and hard feelings. How did Yusuf (AS) feel facing his brothers, and how did they feel? Talk about forgiving someone who hurt you, and about feeling sorry when you have hurt someone.

Why this matters in Islam

Empathy is close to the heart of faith. The Prophet ﷺ said, "None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself" (Sahih al-Bukhari 13). He also described the believers in their mercy, love and kindness to one another as "one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness and fever with it" (Sahih al-Bukhari 6011). For a child, that can be put simply: when someone else hurts, we care, because we belong to each other. For the stories that show kindness in action, see our page of Islamic stories about kindness, and for why the Qur'an teaches through stories at all, see the importance of stories in Islam.

What stories cannot do alone

• They need your questions. A story heard in silence can still be a lovely story, but the feelings talk is what turns it towards empathy.
• They need real life. Children learn most from what they see you do: how you speak to a tired sibling, a neighbour or a stranger.
• The research has limits. The studies here are small, and one is a correlation. They do not prove that any particular book or app makes a child more caring.

Short stories are often the best place to start, because they leave time to talk. We explain why in why short stories matter for young children, or you can browse all our Islamic stories for kids by figure.

Where Sukun Kids fits

Full disclosure: Sukun Kids is our app. It narrates stories of the prophets, companions and great women of Islam, written from the Qur'an and classical tafsir, with read-along text and a sleep timer, made for children from about 3 to 10. It is built to sit beside your own storytelling and your own questions, not to replace them. Start with the free story of Prophet Yusuf (AS), or browse all our Islamic stories for kids first.