A 25-Year Study Just Revealed the Secret to Raising Emotionally Intelligent Kids

Being among this huge majority of parents who want to nudge their children toward empathy, ethics, and emotional intelligence, I have long been on the lookout for credible scientific information on how to do just that. 

Over the years, I've uncovered studies recommending everything from taking your kids to more art museums (awe is linked with empathy) to modeling vulnerability and helping them name their emotions. Certainly, all of these tips have helped me teach my daughter empathy and kindness. But according to a huge new 25-year-long study, the real secret to raising emotionally intelligent kids is both simpler and more profound. 

Empathy is contagious. 

The setup of the study, conducted by a team of psychologists at the University of Virginia, was straightforward, if time-consuming. Starting in 1998, the researchers followed a group of 184 teens for 25 years, watching first how they interacted with their parents and friends and then how they behaved when they became parents themselves. 

The results of all this careful observation were recently published in the journal Child Development. What did the researchers find? In short, that empathy is contagious across the generations. 

The kids whose parents were engaged, sympathetic, and understanding when they were struggling with problems as teens were more likely to be helpful and kind to friends who were going through their own struggles as young adults. 

Later, when these teens became parents themselves, they were also more likely to be empathetic and open with their children. Though the latest generation to be observed by the scientists is still very young, more empathetic parents rated their kids as more likely to understand others' feelings and try to comfort others. 

What you do matters more than what you say. 

As study authors Jessica Stein and Joseph Allen point out in a writeup of their findings on The Conversation, this implies that what you do as a parent matters a lot more than what you say.  

"Adults want teens to develop good social skills and moral character, but simply telling them to be kind doesn't always work. Our findings suggest that if parents hope to raise empathic teens, it may be helpful to give them firsthand experiences of being understood and supported," they write. 

These researchers might have two-and-a-half decades of data to back up this assertion, but they're not the first to observe that paying attention to your kids' emotions and giving them a safe and loving space to share them helps kids develop their own emotional intelligence.

This TEDx video by Lael Stone, an Australian family therapist, is based on her clinical experience, but it makes basically the same argument. It is well worth a watch for parents.  

Why EQ is so important 

Perhaps it is important to close any discussion of how to raise emotionally intelligent kids with a reminder of why it is so important to do so. 

"The ability to empathize with other people in adolescence is a critical skill for maintaining good relationships, resolving conflict, preventing violent crime and having good communication skills and more satisfying relationships as an adult," Stein and Allen stress. 

Here on Inc.com, we've covered a huge range of research showing that EQ is also more important than IQ for a great many types of everyday success, from business leadership and entrepreneurship to better decision-making and even higher income. Of course, emotional intelligence will also make you a better friend, partner, and citizen. That's nothing to sneeze at. 

So if, like 90-plus percent of entrepreneur parents out there, your top goal for your kids is for them to lead with empathy and emotional intelligence, you now know where to start. You can't really lecture your kids into kindness and understanding. The best way to teach EQ is to model it yourself.