When Entitlement Blocks Empathy ~ A Lesson From the Classroom

High school teacher high-fiving teen students (© LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS - stock.adobe.com)

Recently, I watched a video that stopped me in my tracks. A high school teacher, clearly shaken, found herself having to address bullying in her classroom instead of teaching the lesson she had prepared. What unfolded has sparked debate: Was her response too harsh, or was it the tough love students sometimes need to hear?

Link to video:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1No8KLZWmw/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Regardless of where you land on that debate, what struck me most was this. Here was a teacher, hired to teach her subject, who couldn’t even get to the lesson because she was left to manage cruelty, disrespect, and bullying.

This moment made me reflect deeply on something I’ve been researching more and more about the growing sense of entitlement among young people, and how it directly collides with their ability to show empathy.

First I think it’s important to examine Entitlement vs. Empathy. Psychological entitlement is the belief that one deserves special treatment or privileges without regard for effort or the feelings of others. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to recognize, understand, and care about another’s experience. Putting yourself in that persons shoes.

Research shows that the higher a child’s sense of entitlement, the lower their capacity for empathy tends to be. Why? Because entitlement trains the mind to ask, “What about me?” instead of “How does this affect someone else?” When that becomes a habit, empathy gets pushed aside. We see with with the child who chose to walk out in this video. She failed to think about how the actions affected the child being bullied, she only thought about the, “what about me” and her feelings, displaying her sense of entitlement.

Often I say, my book and program are fitted for our younger students, but it’s our upper school students that need it most because this is where it matters, in Middle and High School. We do a good job teaching young children about kindness, sharing, and inclusion. But somewhere along the way, often in middle and high school, those lessons fade. Academic pressures take over, and conversations about empathy and compassion move to the back burner. Yet this is exactly when kids need those lessons most. In my program I tell the younger students that we are good at this now, but one day in middle school or highschool something takes over and we forget and stop thinking about this. I remind them they can’t, they have to carry this through in their heart always!

Teens are navigating identity, belonging, and social hierarchies. If entitlement is left unchecked, empathy is replaced with defensiveness, blame, or indifference. That’s when bullying thrives.

That leaves the role of parents. As parents we have to be honest, some of today’s entitlement comes from us. A “my kid should never be spoken to that way” mindset may shield children in the moment, but it robs them of resilience and accountability. When we remove every consequence or discomfort, we deny them the chance to grow in empathy.

As schools, we need to keep empathy at the center of the curriculum, not just as a poster on the wall, but as lived practice. Real opportunities for students to “step into someone else’s shoes” must be embedded alongside academics.

That teacher in the video shouldn’t have been forced to put her lesson aside to manage bullying, but she was. And maybe that moment is a mirror we need to look into.

If entitlement is silencing empathy in our kids, then it’s on us, as parents, educators, and communities, to put empathy back where it belongs, front and center in education. Because without it, all the grades, tests, and achievements in the world won’t matter.

👉 Parents and educators, what do you think? Do you see entitlement interfering with empathy in today’s kids? How do you think we can do better?