A mother watched her son video-call his grandmother. The grandmother looked tired. Her voice was slower. Her son, 10, kept talking about his game, not noticing. Later, the mother said, ‘Did you see Dadi was tired?’ He said, ‘She didn’t say she was tired.’
She had taught him to listen to words. She had not yet taught him to read faces — because faces are where affective empathy lives.
Affective empathy is feeling with others. Not just knowing they are sad, but feeling a little of their sadness in your own body. It relies on embodied cues — a sigh, a droop of shoulders, a tightening around the eyes, a silence that lasts too long. Developmental neuroscience shows this resonance depends on shared presence and nonverbal cues (Decety & Jackson, 2004; Decety & Cowell, 2014).
AI never provides those cues.
The Un-Tired Other
AI is the un-tired other. It never has a bad day. It never is too hungry to listen. It never says, ‘Can we talk tomorrow? I am overwhelmed.’
MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle calls this the fantasy of companionship without the demands of friendship — now made scalable (Turkle, 2011, 2024). It is comforting. It is also misleading.
When a child interacts mostly with an un-tired other, three things shrink.
1. Face reading practice shrinks. Reading a human face requires thousands of hours of noticing micro-expressions, tone shifts, and posture. A screen that shows only text or an always-smiling avatar provides no practice. Longitudinal research shows face-to-face interaction predicts emotion recognition development (de Villiers et al., 2014).
2. Co-regulation practice shrinks. In human comfort, two nervous systems co-regulate — a child calms as the adult calms. AI provides words about calming, not a calm body present.
3. Tolerance for discomfort shrinks. Human empathy often requires staying with someone who is upset even when you cannot fix it. AI is designed to fix quickly — provide a solution, a reframe, reassurance. The child learns that distress should be solved, not sat with.
Key takeaway: Affective empathy grows when a child feels a little of what you feel, in your presence, without a quick fix.
What Peer-Reviewed Research Shows
Scoping reviews of AI chatbots for social-emotional learning consistently find they can deliver informational support but show persistent limits in fostering affective resonance and attunement (Beceren et al., 2025).
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health review on interactional AI warns that when AI replaces human conversations that involve discomfort, adolescents experience relational displacement — fewer opportunities to develop relationship skills that protect against depression, anxiety, and loneliness (Ha et al., 2026).
Parental technology use in a child’s presence itself predicts poorer attunement moments, according to a 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in JAMA Pediatrics (Toledo-Vargas et al., 2025). Children need not just less AI, but more human presence that is itself present.
UNICEF (2025) Guidance emphasizes that children need attunement, protection, and connection to real people — responsiveness alone is insufficient.
Key takeaway: Words about feelings are not feelings. Affective empathy needs a body in the room.
What Parents Can Do for Affective Empathy
1. Protect face-to-face meals — No devices at meals, not as punishment but as practice. Ask: How did everyone feel today? Where did you see that feeling in their face?
2. Protect noticing — Pause TV, read picture books slowly. ‘What do you think she feels? How can you tell from her eyes?’ Research on emotion recognition training uses exactly this.
3. Protect staying, not fixing — When your child is upset, resist instant solution. Say: ‘I see you are upset. I am here. We don’t have to fix it right away.’ Model co-regulation with your own calm breathing.
4. Protect care for living things — Pets, plants, younger siblings, grandparents. Affective empathy grows when a living being’s state depends partly on you, and shows it in nonverbal ways — a wagging tail, a drooping leaf, a tired smile.
What About You?
Have you noticed your child practicing perspective-taking with AI? What happened when they tried with a real friend? Share below.
About the Authors
Dr. Shaheen Pasha is a Professor of Special Education with over 35 years of teaching, research, and academic leadership experience. She served as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Special Education at the University of Education, Lahore. She earned her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Southampton, UK. She has published more than 35 research papers and co-authored two books. Her expertise lies in child development, cognitive growth, and special education.
Dr. M. Anwar-ur-Rehman Pasha (widely recognized in academic circles as Dr. M. A. Pasha) is a Professor of Computer Science with over 35 years of post-graduate teaching, research, and educational management experience. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, UK in 1996. His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, and Computational Thinking. He has served on different academic and administrative positions and has published two books and over 30 research articles.
Together, they bring 70 years of combined wisdom to help parents raise capable, thoughtful children in the age of AI.
References
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71-100.
Decety, J., & Cowell, J. M. (2014). Friends or foes: Is empathy necessary for moral behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(5), 525-537.
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (2024). The empathy trap: AI and the illusion of understanding. MIT Technology Review.
de Villiers, B., et al. (2014). Face-to-face interaction and emotion recognition in childhood: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology.
Ha, T., et al. (2026). How interactional AI may alter adolescent relational learning and mental health. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Beceren, O., et al. (2025). Digital companions in early childhood education: A scoping review on the potential of chatbots for supporting social-emotional learning. Frontiers in Education, 10, 1634668.
Toledo-Vargas, M., et al. (2025). Parental technology use in a child’s presence and health and development in the early years: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 179(7), 730-737.
UNICEF. (2025). Guidance on AI and children: Version 3.0. UNICEF.