In 2024, 51% of families read aloud to their very young children and 37% to their children aged 6 to 8. Some parents explain that they stop reading aloud to their children in primary school because they now know how to read on their own.
I am a neuroscientist and mother of four children, and I wondered if, with this shutdown, children were not losing more than the simple pleasure of listening to a story read aloud. I particularly wondered about the possible effects on their empathy and creativity.
A simple path from scientific work
I have studied and written about empathy and creativity as part of my personal journey to better understand how to be a good mother. I noticed that these are not innate talents that we possess – or not – at birth. These are skills that develop with practice, just like learning the piano.
However, in primary school, my children were not trained in empathy or creativity. And data shows that young people’s empathy and creativity may have declined in recent decades. Empathy isn’t just about kindness. It is a real strength that helps children anticipate behavior and move safely in complex social situations. It makes them better able to decode facial expressions and emotional signals.
As for creativity, it is essential for self-control and problem solving. It is much easier to regulate your behavior when you can imagine several solutions to a difficulty, rather than focusing, for example, on the one thing you are forbidden to do.
About ten years ago, I started changing some habits at home to make sure my children learned these skills. Spending fifteen minutes in the evening was sometimes the only one-on-one time I had with each of them, with bedtimes staggered at 7:30 p.m., 7:45 p.m., 8 p.m., and 8:15 p.m. It was a precious moment for me. I wondered if using the conflicts exposed in these bedtime stories as teaching aids could help them develop more empathy and stimulate their creativity.
In 2016, I wrote that my children seemed to become more empathetic when we paused throughout reading to ask questions like, “What do you think this character is feeling?” or “You, what would you do?” But this experience had never been tested on a larger scale.
Test the hypothesis
Starting in 2017, four colleagues and I recruited 38 families in central Virginia (United States) with children ages 6 to 8, an age when children are learning to manage social relationships and experiencing intense brain development. All of the children in our study were relatively independent beginning readers or could read independently. In the study, adults read an album every evening for two weeks.
I selected seven illustrated books: The Tooth Fairy Wars, Library Lion, Cui-Cui, Stuck with the Blooz, Cub’s Big World, Nugget and Fang And A New Friend for Marmalade. There was nothing special about these books, except that they all contained some form of social conflict – and they had the approval of my children. These books featured, among other characters, a polar bear cub separated from his mother in the snow, or a boy who hid his teeth from the little mouse.
We observed significant improvement in what researchers call cognitive empathy and overall empathy in both groups.
Half of the families read each book in one go, without interruption. The other half paused at a key moment in the conflict to ask two reflective questions. For example, when the tooth fairy took away the tooth that Nathan desperately wanted to keep, the parents would ask, “How would you feel if you were Nathan?” If the child responded, the parents just listened. Otherwise, they waited thirty seconds before continuing reading.
Before and after the two weeks of experimentation, we assessed the children’s ability to understand what others might think and feel. We also measured their creativity using the“alternative uses task”an exercise which asked them to produce original ideas – for example imagining unusual uses for a paper clip or citing as many objects as possible with wheels.
A gain in empathy in both cases
After just fourteen evenings of reading, we found – as shown in our study published in 2026 – that children whose parents paused to ask questions understood others’ points of view better. But so were those whose parents simply read the story straight through.
We observed a significant improvement in what the researchers call cognitive empathy and overall empathy in both groups, between the children’s first assessment and the follow-up visit two weeks after the start of daily readings.
This may be because it is easier to quickly develop cognitive empathy – that is, the ability to put oneself in another’s place – than emotional empathy, which consists of feeling what another person feels. Emotional empathy engages other regions of the brain and likely requires more time to change deeply ingrained emotional patterns.
A stimulation of creativity
After two weeks of bedtime reading, children in both groups made progress in creative thinking. We used a standard creativity test that measures both the number and originality of responses when children are asked to imagine uses for everyday objects. For example, regarding a brick, a common answer would be “build a wall”, while a more original answer would be “powder it to make red chalk”.
Important point: we found no differences between the sexes. This practice works for both boys and girls.
And children whose parents paused to ask questions produced significantly more ideas overall. Their answers delighted me: they proposed using a paper clip as a wire in an electric clock made from a potato, to help put on a doll’s shoes, or simply to hear the noise it makes when falling to the ground.
We also noticed that the youngest people formulated more original ideas than the older ones. This dovetails with other work suggesting that creativity may fade as children grow older and prioritize conforming to others over thinking differently.
What remains to explore
Our study has limitations: we did not have a control group who would not have read at all. Furthermore, the majority of families had high incomes, with 92% of them earning more than 50,000 dollars (42,000 euros) per year.
Future research could fill this gap and examine whether the observed benefits persist beyond two weeks – and whether they translate into more kindness in daily life.
Important point: we found no differences between the sexes. This practice works for both boys and girls. And even though most families already reported reading regularly to their children, this approach nevertheless helped to strengthen their empathy and creativity.
Bedtime stories aren’t just a ritual
As a neuroscientist, I know that the elementary school years are a particularly pivotal time, marked by intense formation of new brain connections. These fifteen minutes of reading are not only used to prepare children for sleep or to teach them to decipher words. They help build neural circuits linked to understanding others and the ability to imagine possibilities. Through repetition, these connections become stronger, like when you practice the piano.
In a world designed to attract families to screens, evening reading remains a refuge where parent and child share the same imaginary space. Good news for parents: no special method needed. Just read.
