Acid attack survivor Katie Piper: 'We live in divisive times – our empathy is being lost'

Katie Piper’s children save their big conversations for bedtime. “The only reason is to delay going to sleep,” she laughs. “But you have to take whatever you get. Those child-led conversations can be the toughest, because you don’t know what’s going to come up. Sometimes it’s just listening, not bringing it back to your experiences, just listening to theirs and not judging – so they’ll come back to you time and time again.”

It’s the kind of wisdom that infuses The Greatest Gift, Piper’s third children’s book. Launched this summer in partnership with the NSPCC’s Kindness Challenge, the story follows Teeny Mouse, who gives and gives until she feels she has nothing left – only to discover that love and affection are the most valuable gifts of all.

“This is a Christmas book, and Christmas time can get focused on materialism,” Piper explains when we meet at the book’s launch. “Teeny feels like eventually she has nothing left to give, because she’s given and given throughout the book. Then she comes to this reasoning at the end that what she has to give is inside her. It’s not material. It’s her love, and it’s her affection. And that’s something that we can all give and receive, particularly at Christmas.”

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It’s a timely message. 4.5 million children currently live in poverty in the UK, meaning many will face a Christmas without the basics, let alone presents under the tree. For Katie Piper, her book is a reminder that a child’s worth is never measured in material things. “We’re a society built on acquiring items,” she reflects. “For people in less fortunate circumstances, that can feel really magnified. It affects your levels of self-esteem, your confidence, not just in your childhood but into adulthood.”

Self-esteem has always mattered to Piper. In 2008, she survived a life-changing acid attack. Since then, she has campaigned tirelessly for resilience and recovery, founding the Katie Piper Foundation to support survivors of burns and scars and later receiving an OBE for her charity work. But she says it wasn’t until she became a mother herself that she fully understood the gift of connection.

“It wasn’t until I was a mum that I really understood the gift of family,” she says. “I’m fortunate to be from a really amazing family, but I was always that tear-away teenager. The minute I gave birth to my first child, I rang my mum and was like, ‘Sorry about the last 20 years.’”

Not every child is lucky enough to have that kind of support, Piper adds. “Not everybody has the traditional family set-up. But what lies at the heart of it is connection – people that you can trust, and people you can rely on. As you get older, you forge a chosen family, whether it’s through colleagues, friends, hobbies, or maybe it’s through charities or community groups. Everyone needs a support network, no matter what it looks like, and if it’s not traditional, know that’s not a failure.”

That theme of chosen families runs throughout her work. Piper says she has been shaped by small acts of kindness, but more than anything, by empathy. “It’s probably something you can’t necessarily see, but you feel it,” she explains. “Particularly if you share stories or you take part in some kind of storytelling – whether it’s books like this, podcasting, or being on social media. When you put something out, you see comments where people start to talk to each other.

“We live in quite divisive times where empathy is being lost. We’re talking about other humans as objects or politics, and we’re losing that humanity. When empathy is given to you, you don’t take it for granted, and it encourages you to give it out. It’s a mirrored emotion.”

This loss of empathy is most visible online. “It definitely can feel like we’re in a kindness crisis if you use Twitter,” Piper admits. “I have to say, I have deleted that from my phone. But then you can go to other places and see people doing really amazing things that restore your faith in society. It’s important to find your people.”

Her people include those working in child protection and recovery. Alongside the Katie Piper Foundation, Piper highlights the NSPCC, whose Kindness Challenge runs in schools across the UK this autumn. “At my charity, there are people who don’t want to be photographed. And at the NSPCC, there would be so much confidential life-saving work that happens, but it’s very difficult to get that message across to the public. I really admire the anonymous and confidential work these charities do and all the children they keep safe that we’ll never even meet.”

Still, Katie Piper says her big issue is self-esteem. “I find it shocking to see how early it starts,” she says. “When you’re young, you’re not aware of your self-image, you don’t know how the world views you. You don’t feel unique in a negative way until peer groups start to make you feel like that. As a mother and a children’s author, I realised it starts so much earlier. When I’ve been into schools with my books and had discussions about what it is to be different, I realised how important it is to start having that dialogue and open communication at a young age.”

This links directly to her reflections on those bedtime chats. Sometimes, Piper says, children will only open up when they feel listened to – without judgement or advice. And that, she adds, is a lesson for adults too. “It’s something to use with your girlfriends as well, yeah. I suppose British culture is to try and fix people and have an answer. But sometimes people just want to speak and be heard, and it doesn’t have to be solution-led.”

It’s a philosophy that also underpins her activism. “Often in life, we see problems, and the instant dialogue is, ‘Somebody should do something.’ What are you? You are somebody. Every great thing that has been changed started with that thought. That is how my own charity started around a kitchen table, saying, ‘Maybe we should try.’ Even if you fail, you’ve made ripples. Never look around in the crowd saying, ‘Somebody should do it.’ Just be that person.”

Your Greatest Gift by Katie Piper is out now (SPCK, £9.99).

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