Reading to young children improves their social skills – and a new study shows it doesn’t matter if parents stop asking questions

In 2024, 51% of families read aloud to their very young children, while 37% read aloud to their children aged 6 to 8 years.

Some parents said they stopped reading aloud to their school-age children because of their children They can read by themselves.

I Neuroscientist With four children, I wondered if children might be missing out on more than just the joy of listening to books read aloud. In particular, I wondered whether it affected their empathy and creativity.

A simple idea from literature

I have studied and Books about empathy And creativity as part of my personal effort to better understand how to be a good parent. I have found that empathy and creativity are not gifts you are born with or without. They are skills that respond to practice, just like learning to play the piano.

But my kids didn’t learn empathy or creativity in elementary school. And data Show that young compassion and Creativity may have decreased Over the past few decades.

Empathy isn’t just about being nice. It is a superpower that helps children predict behavior and navigate Social situations safely. It makes them better at reading Faces and emotional signals.

Creativity is necessary for self-control and problem solving. It is much easier to regulate your behavior if you can imagine multiple solutions to a problem rather than focusing on the one thing you are not supposed to do.

About 10 years ago, I started making some changes at home to make sure my kids had these skills.

Sometimes setting aside 15 minutes at night was the only time I had with each child, as bedtimes were 7:30, 7:45, 8:00, and 8:15 p.m., and that was precious to me. I wondered if using the conflicts in bedtime stories as teachable moments would help them develop more empathy for others and enhance their creativity.

I Written in 2016 About how I think my kids became more empathetic when we sometimes stopped while reading a book to ask, “How do you think this character feels?” and “What are you going to do?”

But no one has tested this experiment on a larger scale.

Test the idea

Starting from 2017, Four of my colleagues and me We recruited 38 families in central Virginia with children ages 6 to 8 years, an age at which children navigate social relationships and activity. Experiencing intense brain development. All of the children in our study were fairly independent beginning readers or could read independently. In our study, caregivers read one book every night for two weeks.

I chose seven picture books: “Tooth Fairy Wars“”Library lion“”Message to Leo“”Stuck with the Blues“”Big Cub World“”Cluster and Fang“and”Marmalade’s new friend“There was nothing special about these books except that they all contained some kind of social conflict, and my children loved them.

It revolved around, among other characters, a polar bear cub separated from its mother in the snow, and a boy who hid his teeth from the Tooth Fairy.

Half of the families in our study read a book every night without stopping. The other half stopped at one conflict point per story to ask two reflection questions. For example, when the Tooth Fairy stole the tooth that Nathan so desperately wanted to keep, they asked him, “How would you feel if you were Nathan?” If the child answers, the parents just listen. If not, they waited 30 seconds before continuing.

Before and after two weeks, we tested the children’s empathic ability to understand what others might be thinking and how they are feeling. We also tested creativity with Alternative uses taskwhich asked children to generate creative ideas, such as thinking of unusual uses for a paper clip or inserting objects with wheels.

Enhance empathy in both cases

And after just 14 sleeps with books, we found – like us 2026 search Children whose parents stop to ask questions appear to be better at understanding other people’s points of view. But so did children whose parents just read what they wrote directly.

We found that what scientists call cognitive empathy and global empathy improved significantly in both groups between the children’s first visit and our follow-up visit two weeks after they read the books for a week.

This may be because it is easier to develop cognitive empathy quickly – that is, when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes – than it is to develop emotional empathy, or feeling what others feel. Emotional empathy involves different areas of the brain and It will likely take longer to change Deep-rooted emotional processing patterns.

Creative approach

After two weeks of bedtime reading, children in both groups became better at creative thinking. We used a standard creativity test that measures the number and originality of responses when children are asked to think of uses for everyday objects. For example, if asked about bricks, a common answer would be to build a wall, while a more original answer might be to grind them to make red chalk.

But children whose parents stopped to ask questions generated significantly more ideas overall.

I was delighted by their responses: they suggested using a paper clip as a cord for the potato clock, to help put on the doll’s shoes, or simply to see what sound it makes as it hits the floor.

We also noticed that the younger children came up with more innovative ideas than the older children. This aligns with other research showing that creativity may fade as children grow and set their priorities Adapting to others is more than thinking differently.

What we still have to learn

Our study had limitations: we did not have a comparison group that did not read at all. Most families had higher incomes, with 92% of families earning more than $50,000 annually.

Future research could address this gap and also investigate whether the benefits we found persist over the past two weeks — and whether they translate into real-world kindness.

But more importantly, we found no gender differences in our study. This practice works equally well for boys and girls. Although the majority of our families said they regularly read to their children, the practice still serves to foster empathy and creativity.

Bedtime stories are more than just a routine

As a neuroscientist, I know that the elementary school years are a particularly powerful window when children experience intense formation of new brain connections.

These 15 minutes of reading aren’t just about getting kids ready for bed or teaching them how to decode words. They build neural pathways to understand others and imagine possibilities. With repeated practice, these bonds strengthen, just like practicing the piano.

In a world designed to lure families toward screens, bedtime reading remains a refuge where parent and child share the same imaginative space.

But the pressure is still low for parents: you don’t have to read in any special way. Just read.