Picture Books and Emotional Intelligence (EQ): How Reading Helps Children Develop Empathy

When parents read with their children, the first goals that often come to mind are building vocabulary, improving literacy, or supporting cognitive development. However, research in psychology and education has consistently shown that picture books also play a vital role in developing emotional intelligence (EQ) during early childhood.

Long before children can fully express their own emotions, stories and illustrations help them understand feelings, relate to others, and gradually build the social and emotional skills they will use throughout life.

Picture Books Help Children Recognise and Name Emotions

One of the foundations of emotional intelligence is recognising emotions. Through characters' facial expressions, body language, and the emotional journey within a story, children learn that happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disappointment are all natural human emotions.

Research by Dunn and Cutting (1999) found that children who regularly discussed emotions during shared book reading developed richer emotional vocabulary and stronger abilities to understand other people's feelings later in childhood.

Reading together therefore becomes much more than a literacy activity—it becomes an opportunity to build emotional awareness.

Picture Books Foster Empathy

Picture books also help children develop empathy, one of the core components of emotional intelligence.

According to Kucirkova et al. (2014), discussing characters' thoughts and emotions with adults encourages children to understand that other people may think and feel differently from themselves.

This supports children's ability to:

• Care for others.

• Share and cooperate.

• Respect different emotions and perspectives.

• Build healthy social relationships.

These early experiences become the foundation for positive communication and social interaction.

Reading Picture Books Creates Safe Emotional Experiences

Emotional intelligence cannot be taught simply by telling children to "be kind" or "behave well."

Instead, it develops through experiences where children feel heard, respected, and emotionally safe.

Picture books provide exactly this kind of environment.

As children observe characters facing challenges and expressing different emotions, they begin to imagine how they themselves might respond in similar situations.

As researcher Maria Nikolajeva (2014) explains, picture books allow children to "experience other people's emotions without suffering real-life consequences," helping them better understand both themselves and others.

Research Shows Positive Social Benefits

Recent research continues to highlight the importance of picture books in children's social development.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychology (2025) found that children who were regularly exposed to picture books focusing on emotions and social relationships showed significant improvements in:

• Emotional recognition.

• Empathy.

• Positive prosocial behaviours.

These findings reinforce the growing evidence that picture books contribute not only to language development but also to the emotional and social skills children need throughout life.

Every Picture Book Plants an Emotional Seed

At Chuột Đất Books, we believe every picture book is more than a beautiful story—it is a seed of empathy waiting to grow.

When parents pause to ask simple questions such as:

• "How do you think this character feels?"

• "What would you do?"

• "Why do you think they acted that way?"

they are helping emotional intelligence develop naturally through meaningful conversations.

Reading picture books together is therefore not only an investment in children's knowledge, but also an investment in raising compassionate, emotionally aware, and caring human beings.

References

• Chen, H., Lyu, D., & Zhu, L. (2025). The effectiveness of social-themed picture book reading in promoting young children's prosocial behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1569925

• Dunn, J., & Cutting, A. L. (1999). Understanding others, and individual differences in friendship interactions in young children. Social Development, 8(2), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00091

• Kucirkova, N., et al. (2014). Research on shared picture book reading and the development of empathy in young children.

• Nikolajeva, M. (2014). Picturebooks and emotional literacy. The Reading Teacher, 67, 249–254. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1229