I grew up loving books, and I still notice how a story can give me a new way to describe a feeling or see a situation. That made me wonder what kinds of practice childhood reading offers.
Reading can be one route to vocabulary, imagination and sustained attention. It is hardly the only route: conversation, play, school and lived experience matter too. Research does not support a seven-trait personality profile of adults who rarely read as children.
Here are seven experiences books can offer, and ways to explore them at any age.
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1) Stories can invite perspective-taking
During my Graduate Diploma of Psychological Studies, I became interested in how fiction invites us to consider other people’s thoughts. A 2024 research review found generally small links between fiction reading and social understanding, not a guarantee that readers are more empathetic.
When you read a novel, you’re stepping into someone else’s shoes, experiencing their thoughts, feelings, and motivations. You’re practicing perspective-taking without even realizing it.
That exercise can be useful, but a person who rarely read books as a child may have practiced perspective-taking in many other ways.
In conversation, it helps to pause before saying “Well, I would never do that” and ask what the other person experienced. A novel can prompt that habit; it cannot tell us why any particular person responds as they do.
2) Books can broaden emotional vocabulary
Books expose us to thousands of ways to describe feelings. Instead of just “sad,” we learn words like melancholic, despondent, wistful, or heartbroken. Each word carries its own subtle shade of meaning.
Those words can give us more options for expressing a feeling. But people also learn emotional language through family, friends, music and other experiences; a childhood reading history cannot tell us how emotionally skilled someone is.
In my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explore how mindfulness helps us notice emotions as they arise, even as sensations in the body, before we react to them. That kind of noticing helps us understand and work with our emotions more effectively.
Sometimes a more precise word helps us explain a mix of disappointment and relief. If “I feel weird” is all that comes to mind, talking it through or reflecting quietly can help too. An emotional outburst has many possible causes; it should not be attributed to a lack of books.
3) Stories can make room for complexity
Reading, especially non-fiction and literary fiction, can invite you to hold multiple ideas at once and see how they connect.
You learn that characters have mixed motivations, that problems rarely have perfect solutions, and that life exists in shades of gray rather than black and white.
It can be tempting for any of us to reach for a simple explanation, such as assuming all relationship problems come down to “communication issues” or success is just about “working hard.” A story with mixed motives may encourage a second look.
Don’t get me wrong – simple solutions have their place. But life’s biggest challenges usually require nuanced thinking.
When I write about personal development, I’m reminded that real change takes time and involves multiple factors. Books are one enjoyable way to sit with that complexity.
4) A long story can be practice in patience
Think about what reading can involve. You follow a story over chapters and wait for a payoff. For some children, that can be an enjoyable way to practice patience and persistence.
Of course, patience develops through many activities, from learning an instrument to caring for a pet. We cannot infer someone’s financial choices, relationships or career decisions from whether they read books as a child. A book is simply one low-stakes place to enjoy a slower reward.
5) Books invite abstract thinking
Books ask us to imagine things that aren’t physically present. Whether it’s visualizing a dragon, understanding a metaphor, or considering a philosophical question, reading gives us one way to play with abstract ideas.
So do drawing, pretend play, design and everyday problem-solving. Someone saying “Let’s stick to the facts” may simply prefer a concrete discussion in that moment. It does not reveal their childhood reading habits or their capacity for creativity and humor.
6) Reading can build comfort with sustained attention
Reading a longer book can give you practice following an argument, tracking plot lines and piecing together clues over time.
Sustained attention also grows through work, conversation, craft and other interests. Skimming a document or interrupting an explanation doesn’t tell us whether someone grew up with books.
In Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I write about how meditation can help train this kind of sustained attention.
In a busy day, it can be pleasant to spend a few minutes with a longer piece of writing. It is an invitation to slow down, not a test of intelligence or a diagnosis of anyone’s attention span.
7) Books can expand your reference points
Books expose us to thousands of lives, cultures, time periods, and perspectives. We learn from others’ mistakes, understand historical patterns, and see how universal certain human experiences are.
It’s easy for any of us to assume our own experience is universal: “All bosses are like that” or “That’s just how relationships work.” Books can challenge that assumption, and so can listening to other people and weighing good evidence. Reading history alone doesn’t determine how open-minded someone is.
Final words
The point isn’t to judge anyone by how many books they read as a child. These are possibilities a good story can offer, not seven deficits in people who missed out on reading.
If you’d like to read more now, start with something that genuinely interests you. It doesn’t have to be classic literature, and there is no magic daily quota. Enjoying a book, sharing one with a child or talking about a story with a friend can be rewarding in its own right.