Nurturing empathy in teenagers: A parent’s guide

If you’re parenting a teenager, you’ve probably wondered what happened to the sweet kid who used to notice when you were sad. Now they walk past you slumped at the kitchen table without a second glance and seem genuinely baffled that their little brother might be hurt by their teasing.

Some reassurance up front: this is usually not a character flaw, a parenting failure, or a warning sign. Empathy is still under construction during the teenage years, and there’s a lot parents can do to support it, mostly through everyday moments rather than lectures. Here’s what’s happening in the adolescent brain, what’s normal, how to nurture empathy at home, and when it’s worth seeking professional advice.

What’s happening in the teenage brain

Empathy has two main ingredients. Affective empathy is the ability to feel something of what another person feels: the wince when someone else stubs their toe. Cognitive empathy (sometimes called perspective-taking) is the ability to work out what someone else is thinking or feeling, even when it differs from your own view.

Affective empathy shows up early. Even toddlers can be distressed by another child’s crying. Cognitive empathy takes much longer to mature, and the teenage years are right in the middle of that process. Research on the “social brain” (the network of regions we use to understand other people, including the medial prefrontal cortex) shows these areas continue to change in structure and function during adolescence.¹ The brain as a whole keeps remodelling until the mid-twenties.⁴

In practical terms, your teenager is reading other people with equipment that’s still being upgraded. They can absolutely feel for others, often intensely, but reliably stepping outside their own perspective, especially in the heat of the moment, is a skill still developing.

Teen self-focus is developmental, not a red flag

Adolescents are famously preoccupied with themselves: how they look, how they’re coming across, where they fit. This self-focus can look like a lack of empathy, but it’s better understood as a normal feature of the stage. The central task of adolescence is building an identity, and that requires a lot of inward attention.

Interestingly, empathy doesn’t develop in a smooth upward line. A well-known longitudinal study found that perspective-taking generally increases across the teen years, but boys showed a temporary dip in empathic concern in mid-adolescence (roughly ages 13 to 16) before recovering later.² Girls’ empathic concern stayed stable, at a higher level than boys’, while their perspective-taking rose more steeply.²

If your fifteen-year-old son seems less considerate than he was at eleven, that’s common and, for most boys, temporary. What matters is the overall trajectory across months and years, not whether they showed compassion on any given Tuesday.

Why it’s worth nurturing anyway

Normal doesn’t mean unimportant. Because so much social and emotional development happens during adolescence, the teen years are a genuine window of opportunity. One study that followed people from age twelve into their mid-thirties found that the way empathy developed during adolescence predicted social competence (communication skills, the ability to maintain relationships) more than two decades later.³

Teenagers who build strong empathy skills tend to navigate friendships better, manage conflict more constructively, and are better set up for adult relationships and workplaces. And unlike height or shoe size, empathy is something the environment, especially the family environment, genuinely influences.

Practical ways to nurture empathy at home

None of this requires a formal program. Empathy grows through ordinary family life, and parents remain surprisingly influential even when teens act as though you’re merely their driver. Some approaches that help:

• Model it out loud. Teens learn more from what you do than what you say.⁴ Let them hear you wondering about other people’s inner worlds: “Grandpa was quiet tonight. I think he’s still finding Christmas hard without Nan.”
• Empathise with your teen first. Adolescents who feel understood find it easier to extend understanding to others. Take their concerns seriously even when they seem small to you. Being left off a group chat can genuinely hurt at fourteen. You don’t have to agree; you just have to show you’ve grasped it.
• Ask perspective questions instead of delivering verdicts. When they’re in conflict with a friend, sibling or teacher, gently wonder rather than lecture: “How do you reckon she saw it?” Questions invite perspective-taking; lectures invite eye-rolling.
• Use stories and screens. Films, novels, and the shows they’re streaming are low-stakes empathy practice. Talking about why a character acted the way they did builds the same mental muscles as real-life perspective-taking, without the defensiveness.
• Repair after ruptures, including your own. Saying “I’m sorry I snapped; I was stressed about work and took it out on you” models that behaviour has inner causes, that relationships survive mistakes, and that acknowledging impact matters.
• Give them real responsibility for others. Caring for a pet, helping a younger cousin, volunteering, coaching a junior team: genuine opportunities to matter to someone else do more for empathy than any conversation about it.
• Notice and name it when it happens. “It was thoughtful of you to check on your sister after her exam” lands better than criticising every empathy failure. Catch them being kind.

Empathy is not people-pleasing

One distinction worth holding onto, particularly for naturally sensitive teens: empathy and people-pleasing are not the same thing. Empathy means understanding and caring about what others feel. People-pleasing means abandoning your own needs to manage what others feel: saying yes when you mean no, apologising for things that aren’t your fault, keeping the peace at your own expense. A teen who can’t tolerate anyone being unhappy with them isn’t displaying advanced empathy; they’re often displaying anxiety.

Healthy empathy comes with boundaries attached. You can understand a friend’s disappointment and still decline their request. If your teen takes on everyone’s problems, feels responsible for other people’s moods, or is exhausted by their friendship group’s dramas, the skill they need isn’t more empathy. It’s the ability to care about others while still looking after themselves. Parents can model this too: “I really feel for her, and I’m also not able to take that on this week” is a sentence worth saying within earshot of your teenager.

When to seek support

Most empathy wobbles in adolescence are developmental and resolve with time and support. But there are situations where a professional opinion is worth seeking. Consider talking to your GP or a psychologist if you notice:

• A persistent pattern, not just moments. Ongoing indifference to other people’s distress across settings (home, school, friendships) lasting many months, rather than patchy teenage self-absorption.
• Cruelty without remorse. Deliberate harm to people or animals, or repeated bullying, with little guilt when the impact is pointed out.
• A marked change from how they used to be. A previously warm kid who becomes flat, detached or uncaring may be showing signs of depression, trauma or significant stress rather than an empathy problem as such.
• Social difficulties that distress your teen. Some young people, including some autistic teens, find reading others’ emotions genuinely hard and feel isolated because of it. Assessment can clarify what’s going on and open up practical support.
• The other extreme. A teen so consumed by others’ feelings that they’re anxious, burnt out or unable to say no may also benefit from support.

Seeking an assessment isn’t labelling your child. It’s gathering information. Often the outcome is reassurance; sometimes it’s early support that makes the following years smoother. If you’re unsure, you can request an appointment to talk it through.

How family therapy can help

Empathy is a relational skill, so it often makes sense to work on it relationally. Family therapy isn’t about identifying who’s at fault; it’s about changing the patterns between people. A session might slow down a familiar argument so that, possibly for the first time, a teenager actually hears what’s underneath their mum’s nagging (worry), and a parent hears what’s underneath their teen’s rudeness (feeling controlled, ashamed, or overwhelmed).

That experience of being understood, and of discovering that the people you live with have inner worlds too, is empathy practice in real time. For some families the work is mostly about communication habits; for others it involves addressing the anxiety, low mood or conflict that’s been crowding empathy out. A psychologist can also work individually with a teen who prefers it, with parent sessions alongside.

Frequently asked questions

Is my teenager’s selfishness normal, or should I be worried?

Some self-focus is a normal, expected part of adolescent development. The brain systems for perspective-taking are still maturing, and research shows empathy can even dip temporarily in mid-adolescence, particularly for boys. Worry less about individual selfish moments and more about persistent patterns: ongoing indifference to others’ distress, cruelty without remorse, or a marked personality change all warrant a professional conversation.

At what age should empathy be fully developed?

There’s no fixed finish line. The brain regions involved in understanding other people continue developing into the early to mid-twenties, and empathy keeps being shaped by experience across adulthood. Rather than expecting a finished product by eighteen, look for gradual growth: better perspective-taking at seventeen than at thirteen, and more capacity to repair after conflict.

My teen is empathetic with friends but not with family. Why?

This is extremely common and usually a good sign in disguise: it means the capacity is there. Teens often save their worst behaviour for home because it’s where they feel safest, and because separating from parents is part of the developmental job description. Keep modelling warmth and perspective-taking; the family empathy usually returns through late adolescence.

Can empathy actually be taught, or is it just personality?

Both temperament and environment play a role, but empathy is clearly influenced by experience. It isn’t fixed at birth. Parents shape it through modelling, empathising with their teen, and everyday conversations about other people’s perspectives. Where empathy development has been derailed by anxiety, trauma or family conflict, psychological support can help get it back on track.

If you’d like support with the teenage years, whether that’s an assessment, individual support for your teen, or family sessions, Mind Health’s psychologists work with families and teens in Parramatta and via telehealth Australia-wide.

References

1. Blakemore, S-J. (2008). The social brain in adolescence. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 267–277.
2. Van der Graaff, J., Branje, S., De Wied, M., Hawk, S., Van Lier, P., & Meeus, W. (2014). Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: Gender differences in developmental changes. Developmental Psychology, 50(3), 881–888.
3. Allemand, M., Steiger, A. E., & Fend, H. A. (2015). Empathy development in adolescence predicts social competencies in adulthood. Journal of Personality, 83(2), 229–241.
4. Raising Children Network. Brain development in pre-teens and teenagers.

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