Imagine this preschool interaction. Maya is loading blocks into a truck when Sam reaches for it. Maya pulls it closer. Sam pushes her, and she cries. Their teacher moves beside them and creates space. “I won’t let you push. Maya, I’m here to help.” Sam stamps his feet. The teacher attends to Maya while keeping both children close and supported. What happens next offers an opportunity to teach empathy. The teacher can help Sam understand the effect of pushing while respecting Maya’s need for comfort or space. That learning begins with safety and a responsive adult.
Teaching empathy involves everyday decisions about how we interpret behavior and respond to feelings. Curiosity helps us investigate children’s experiences. Compassion guides the care we offer. Together, these practices help children understand one another while learning that everyone deserves protection from harm.
Understand What Children Are Learning
Empathy involves understanding or sharing another person’s feelings. Compassion adds concern for that person and a willingness to help. Educators can support both by helping children notice distress, consider another perspective, and choose a caring response. Expectations should reflect each child’s communication skills and experience.
Brazzelli and colleagues (2022) found associations among toddlers’ emotion knowledge, understanding of mental states, language abilities, and prosocial behavior. Their findings identify relationships, rather than proving that teaching one skill causes kindness. They invite educators to connect emotional language with familiar social experiences. A meta-analysis of 87 studies involving 20,293 preschoolers found improvements in interpersonal and emotional skills following social and emotional learning interventions (Silberman et al. 2026). No main intervention component consistently outperformed the others. For practitioners, this supports intentional teaching while leaving room to individualize strategies and observe children’s responses.
Begin with Safety and Adult Regulation
During conflict, notice your own response. A tightening jaw or rising voice may signal the need for a brief breath while you intervene. Use a steady voice and a clear limit - “I won’t let you hit.” Attend to the child who was hurt while supporting both children’s safety. Offer co-regulation, or adult support for managing an experience that feels too difficult to handle independently. Reduce your language, stay nearby, and offer a familiar calming option. Some children welcome sitting together; others prefer space or a comforting object. Adjust when a response appears to increase distress. Save questions about another person’s feelings until children can participate. Then revisit the event briefly: “Maya was crying after the push. What might help her now?” Repeated assistance is part of teaching. A child may understand a feeling during a calm conversation and still need help during conflict.
Adults can also narrate manageable emotions: “I feel frustrated that the paint spilled. I’m taking a breath before I clean it up.” Curby and colleagues (2022) observed associations between teachers’ emotion-focused practices and preschoolers’ social interactions and engagement. Because the study was observational, it does not establish that modeling alone produces those outcomes.
Let Curiosity Guide Your Interpretation
A child who grabs materials may need help requesting a turn, may misunderstand a routine, or may feel overwhelmed by crowding. Investigate these possibilities. Notice what happened before the action, listen to the child, and look for patterns. Ask, “What were you trying to do?” or offer a tentative statement: “You wanted the truck.” Leave room for correction.
Separate observation from assumption. “Sam reached for the truck after Maya moved it” describes an action. “Sam wanted to upset Maya” assigns an intention we have not established. Describing events accurately gives us a stronger starting point for deciding what to teach. Examine the environment, too. Would additional materials, a clearer transition, or more space reduce conflict? A teacher might move a shelf that crowds a play area while continuing to teach children how to request space. Curiosity should produce a useful adjustment or a question to explore.
Family knowledge can clarify children’s communication and experiences. Ask what helps at home. Avoid turning possible explanations into assumptions about a child’s family, parenting, or emotional health.
Connect Compassion with Responsibility
Understanding a feeling does not remove the need to stop harmful behavior. Acknowledge the experience and teach an alternative: “You were angry when your building fell. I won’t let you hit. You can tell me, ‘I need help.’” Offer another communication method when spoken language is inaccessible. Later, support a repair that addresses the harm. Rebuilding a structure or returning materials can make responsibility concrete. Ask, “What happened to Maya’s tower?” and “What could help now?” Provide choices when children need assistance generating an idea.
An apology can be part of repair, but repeating “sorry” does not show everything a child understands. Connect words with helpful actions and the receiving child’s preferences. A child who was hurt may decline a hug or request space. Caring includes respecting that choice. When adults make mistakes, model repair directly: “I spoke sharply. That may have frightened you. I’m sorry. I will try again calmly.” Follow through without asking children to comfort the adult.
Return to the alternative during play. Sit near the truck area and help Sam communicate, “Can I use it when you’re finished?” Support Maya’s response, too. Later, describe the action specifically: “You asked before taking the truck and waited while Maya answered.” Such feedback names a strategy children can recognize and try again.
Explore Feelings through Stories and Play
Shared reading creates opportunities to discuss emotions before conflict occurs. In a study of 142 toddlers, children whose teachers combined prosocial stories with conversations about feelings, intentions, and helping outperformed comparison groups on measures of prosocial behavior (Brazzelli et al. 2021). Stories become useful teaching opportunities when adults help children explore their social meaning. Pause at an emotionally meaningful moment. Ask, “What might this character be feeling?” followed by “What happened that makes you think that?” Accept different plausible interpretations. Children may point, use a home language, or demonstrate an answer with a puppet. With toddlers, offer a short observation: “The baby is crying. The blanket is on the floor.” Keep the exchange responsive. Repeated questions on every page can interrupt enjoyment. Follow children’s interests and leave room for their observations. During pretend play, introduce a manageable problem: one puppet wants company while another wants quiet. Invite solutions that consider both needs.
Grazzani’s (2024) exploratory study of 34 preschoolers found gains in emotion understanding and theory of mind after structured conversations about stories, videos, and inner experiences. These findings concern specific measured abilities; they do not establish that children will respond empathically in every disagreement. Educators can look for opportunities to connect story conversations with classroom life.
Recognize Different Expressions of Care
Avoid requiring eye contact, a particular facial expression, or spoken explanations as proof that a child cares. Offer pictures, gestures, communication devices, and time to respond. Quietly bringing a tissue may communicate concern, just as offering reassuring words can. Invite families to describe how comfort is offered at home. Examine your own interpretations: Whose frustration receives patience? Whose silence is mistaken for indifference? Replace labels such as “mean” or “uncaring” with descriptions of what happened and the support needed.
Partner with Families and Support Educators
Families can extend conversations through ordinary routines. Share a classroom story question, lend books in familiar languages, or invite a family story about helping. Offer an accessible invitation that fits families’ time and resources.
Chen and colleagues (2025) randomly assigned 60 children ages 4 to 5 and their parents to read socially themed picture books or books on other topics. After eight weeks, the socially themed reading group had higher empathy and prosocial behavior scores. The small sample and absence of follow-up limit conclusions about lasting effects. When communicating about conflict, share an objective description and the support provided. “Sam pushed while reaching for a truck. We helped both children, and we’re practicing how to request a turn.” Invite the family’s perspective and agree on an attainable next step. Protect the other child’s privacy.
Educators also need support. Byun and Jeon (2023) found relationships among teachers’ psychological wellbeing, emotion regulation, and emotional responsiveness, with patterns differing between the United States and South Korea. Leaders can examine break coverage and provide reflective coaching. These are practical responses to adult needs, rather than interventions proven by that study.
Notice Progress and Plan What Comes Next
Begin with one recurring conflict. Plan a calm response, introduce accessible language, and practice a possible repair through play. Record concrete examples of children noticing distress, requesting help, or considering a peer’s wishes. Include the assistance each child needed. Review observations over several weeks. Notice whether children use a strategy in different situations or need a different prompt. A gesture after adult support is meaningful information. Use these details to adjust teaching and avoid drawing conclusions about a child’s character from one difficult interaction.
Progress may be small - a child pauses before grabbing and looks toward the teacher. Recognize that action and offer the next support. Each responsive interaction gives children another opportunity to practice understanding one another.
References
Brazzelli, E., Grazzani, I., and Pepe, A. (2021). Promoting Prosocial Behavior in Toddlerhood: A Conversation-Based Intervention at Nursery. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 204: 105056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105056.
Brazzelli, E., Pepe, A., and Grazzani, I. (2022). Prosocial Behavior in Toddlerhood: The Contribution of Emotion Knowledge, Theory of Mind, and Language Ability. Frontiers in Psychology 13: 897812. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.897812.
Byun, S., and Jeon, L. (2023). Preschool Teachers’ Psychological Wellbeing, Emotion Regulation, and Emotional Responsiveness: A US-Korea Comparison. Frontiers in Psychology 14: 1152557. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1152557.
Chen H., Lyu D., and Zhu L . (2025). The Effectiveness of Social-Themed Picture Book Reading in Promoting Children’s Prosocial Behavior. Frontiers in Psychology 16: 1569925. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1569925.
Curby, T. W., Zinsser, K. M., Gordon, R. A., Ponce, E., Syed, G. and Peng, F. (2022). Emotion-Focused Teaching Practices and Preschool Children’s Social and Learning Behaviors. Emotion 22 (8): 1869–85. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000988.
Grazzani, Ilaria. (2024). “Promoting Theory of Mind and Emotion Understanding in Preschool Settings: An Exploratory Training Study.” Frontiers in Psychology 15: 1439824. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1439824.
Silberman, A., de Mooij, B., Fekkes, M., & Overbeek, G. (2026). Which Components Boost Social-Emotional Learning Intervention Effects in Preschool Children? A Multilevel Meta-Analysis. Early Education and Development, 37(7), 1728–1767. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2026.2688468
About the Author
Victoria Long-Coleman, Ph.D., MBA is the Founder and Principal of Early Childhood Innovations. An early childhood educator, leadership, coach, author, speaker, she focuses on strengthening educators, developing leaders, and translating research into practical approaches that improve early childhood systems.
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