One of the things you hear all the time nowadays is that our world needs more empathy. So teaching kids to be empathetic is an important task for parents and teachers. As those entrusted with raising the next generation, it’s our job to teach them how to be good human beings. Little Bookworm is a very empathetic kid. She is the first to run to help someone in need, and she often takes it upon herself to defend those who are being picked on. So I wanted to share how to use children’s books to teach empathy, and how we have made it part of our daily conversations.

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Obviously, books are a very important part of our daily life. And I love finding ways to use books and our reading time to start big conversations and check in with Little Bookworm about her life and her emotional intelligence. There are lots of ways that you can infuse some emotional lessons into your daily reading.

Asking Questions

While reading out loud to your kids, you want to make sure you keep them engaged by asking them questions and getting them involved in the book. One of the easiest ways to start conversations about emotions and empathy is to ask kids about the characters in the book you are reading.

• How do you think [the character] feels?
• What would you do if you were there?
• How do you think [character]’s actions made [character] feel?
• Was that nice of [character]?

Make Statements

When I read with Little Bookworm, we don’t just read the words on the page.  We often add our own commentary to the stories. I use this to point out important moments or emotions in the story.

• I bet that didn’t feel good.
• That wasn’t very nice.
• Those aren’t very nice words.

Using the Illustrations

One of the important steps to teaching empathy is helping kids decode the emotions of others. This includes facial expressions and body language. Illustrations are really helpful in teaching kids to decipher emotional states. Ask them to look at the illustrations and see if they can tell how the character is feeling. Point out the signals that they don’t recognize yet. You will be amazed how quickly they start to pick up on these signs!

Read Books about Emotions

We love finding new books and resources about emotions and kindness, and have shared lots of them on the blog. Check out these posts that we have featured in the past.

Introduce emotions to kids with a colorful book and discuss how to juggle multiple emotions at once.

Kid’s Books about Emotions

Check out this list of books that explore emotions and emotional intelligence.

Teaching Kids about Emotions with Social Stories

Teach kids how to handle big emotions with fun and interesting social stories that start big conversations.

How to Set Up a Calm Down Corner

This post shares how we set up our calm down corner, and the resources and books that we find the most helpful.

This list of books shares ordinary acts of kindness that kids can recognize and utilize in their own lives to show empathy and caring for those around them.

Teaching Kids to Work Through a Bad Mood

We all have bad days. The books and resources on this list are a great way to help kids tackle those bad moods.

Exploring Expressions with Bad Brows

Teach kids to decipher facial expressions to help them understand the emotional states of others.

5 Children’s Books for a Bad Day

These kid’s books are a great way to help kids tackle the big emotions that can take over a day.

Teaching Kids to Play Nice and Be Kind

The children’s books on this list teach kids how to be kind and think about the feelings of others.

Reference Your Favorites

Once you have started using these tactics in your reading, you will be surprised how easily kids can take this learning from the page to the real world. The more you discuss these things while reading your favorites, the more they will remember them. This can be used to help them understand the actions of their friends and classmates, and can also allow you to start conversations about their own feelings. “Remember how [character] felt in the book? Is that how you feel now?”

I am always impressed when Little Bookworm can reference our favorite stories. After reading Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully several times, she started referencing it whenever one of her classmates started acting out. “Maybe he is like the bully in the Chester book and he just needs someone to be nice to him. We can smooth out the rough parts together”.

There are so many ways to use children’s books to teach empathy to kids, and it makes the somewhat heavy topics a lot easier (and more fun) to tackle. How do you use books to teach empathy to kids? Share your tricks in the comments below!

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