CAREGIVERS WHO TALK ABOUT EMOTIONS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN CAN HELP DEVELOP PROSOCIAL RESPONSIVENESS AND EMPATHY

Parental facilitation of children’s social and language development is especially important in toddlerhood, generally defined as 16-36 months of age, because children make rapid and significant strides in their social, cognitive, and language functioning.

Prosocial behaviour in young children can be facilitated by caregiver interaction.

Children of 14 months can display altruism and cooperation. Experiments carried out on 14-month-olds that involved them handing things to someone needing help proved that they understood others’ unfulfilled goal and could altruistically help them to achieve it.

Studies have shown that empathy can be developed when parents talk to children about feelings. Some studies have examined links between prosocial behaviour and parental talk about emotions in very young children in whom both language and prosocial behaviour are just emerging. In early and seminal research,

researchers showed that 18 to 30-month-old children whose mothers frequently used multiple forms of affectionate communication exhibited greater concern in response to others’ distress and were more likely to try to comfort them.

The researchers argued that this style of interaction, which focused on discipline but was laden with emotion, laid the groundwork for children’s general sensitivity to the feelings of others as well as an understanding of the effects of their actions on others’ emotions. In another influential study, the researchers found that mothers’ discussion of feelings during family interactions with 18 and 24-month-olds was associated with their children’s cooperative and peacemaking behaviour with siblings.

Another researcher found that 25-month-old children whose mothers explained a doll’s emotions more often or asked the children to label the doll’s emotions were more attentive to and concerned about an adult’s distress when their favourite toy broke.

There is thus some initial evidence for correlations between parental talk about emotions and toddlers’ early prosocial responsiveness.

More studies have also found that empathy and prosocial skills can be built in young children whose prosocial behaviour is emerging, through parents’ talking about others’ emotions with them. Two studies reported findings on "sharing" in 29 18 and 24-month-olds and of "empathy-based helping" in 62 18 and 30-month-olds.

In both studies, parents read age-appropriate picture books to their children. The content and structure of their emotion-related and internal state discourse were coded. Results showed that children who helped and shared quickly and often, especially in tasks that required complex emotion understanding, had parents who asked them to label and explain the emotions depicted in the books often.

Moreover, it was parents’ elicitation of children’s talk about emotions rather than parents’ labelling of emotions and explanations that contributed to children’s prosocial behaviour, even after controlling for age. Thus, it is the quality, not the quantity, of parents’ talk about emotions with their toddlers that matters for early prosocial behaviour.