Gratitude & Kindness (9 page)

Your Honorary PhD in W
orking
with Appropriate Praise

As we have already mentioned, praise is one of those subjects that easily confuses parents. This is why so many of us get it wrong, and why we want to discuss it more thoroughly here. There is a big difference between, “I like your effort on the soccer field, Junior” and, “You’re a great soccer player, Junior.”

We would like to help you dig in to how we psychology types do our work and come to the conclusions we do. If you are game for some of the academic stuff, we invite you into our world in the next few pages.

Our colleagues, Mueller & Dweck
25
have spent years studying the effects of praise on students at a dozen New York schools. A specific study involving 400 fifth graders saw them individually completing a nonverbal IQ test that all children would do fairly well on. The researchers took care to praise each child, either by commenting on their
intelligence
(“Wow, you’re really smart”) or
effort
(“Wow, I see that you really tried hard on that question”). Then a second test option was introduced. At that point, the children had a chance to choose which one they wanted to complete.

• Option 1:
  They were told that the test would be a lot more difficult than the first, but they would learn a lot from the puzzles.
  
• Option 2:
  They were told that the second test was easy, just like
  the first.
  

The results were startling: some 90 per cent of the children that were praised for effort volunteered to do the harder test. Nearly all the “clever” children chose to do the easy test.

What this shows us, is that if you praise intelligence without effort or hard work, children will get the message that it is better to play it safe and stick to easy things. As you can see, praise can backfire.

In general, further studies indicate that it is actually recognizing a child’s process that produces a good result, while recognizing a trait has a negative effect. In other words, when we praise the EFFORT a child has put into something, she is more likely to be encouraged to seek out further knowledge and learn more, because she deems that her effort is something she can control.

In addition, if a child makes a mistake when they are focused on effort as a goal, they tend to not take it personally and instead seek out the right answer.

In contrast, person-centred praise, such as, “You are so clever,” does not send the right message. A child starts to think about themselves as categorized or labeled “good” or “bad”, “intelligent” or “unintelligent”, “fast” or “slow.” Children who are given PERSON-centred praise:

• Attempt to get more praise by choosing simple, easy tasks that are below their ability level.
  
• Will become anxious about letting you down.
  
• Will take fewer risks in academics, sports and other skill-based areas because they are afraid of failing.
  

Process vs. Person Praise: one more time

• Jane stacks blocks neatly for the teacher. The teacher comments on what a great effort Jane has put in. Result: Jane is motivated to do better with the next stack.
  
• John stacks blocks neatly for the teacher. The teacher comments on how intelligent John must be.
  Result: John experiences anxiety the next time the teacher asks him to stack the blocks. He wonders:
  What if she doesn’t think I’m smart this time?
  

Gratitude Tip
Always praise or encourage effort over ability. We are all born with abilities, and they are a natural part of who we are— but they do not make us better people. When you recognize your children’s efforts, they will learn to work harder and reach further as they learn from you that it is a good thing to put in a strong effort.

Random, extra bonus information that you may be interested in: another unexpected result of studies on praising demonstrates that children who are rewarded for giving (volunteering, sharing) tend to not “give” for very long, they only do it when reinforced. This means that if you are bribing or rewarding your child to be giving, you are not teaching them anything other than they should wait for a reward before they give to others.

Exercise: Process versus Person Praise

Now that you understand the difference between praising a child’s personal traits and praising his/her process (effort, enthusiasm, consistency, determination), you can put it into practice at home. When parents do this for the first time with young children, they tell us they experience a very positive response.

As usual, if our children are going to experience any real, positive reinforcement from this new form of encouragement, the change must come from us, the parents. To begin, list three examples of both types
of praise.

Process versus Person Praise Challenge

Points to Remember, Actions to Take

• Key 1: Do not overpay your child.
  Helping your child to understand that their efforts are worth the same as others, and that their own efforts can bring rewards, will teach skills for long-term success and power up their ability to be strong and successful.
  
• Key 2: Be mindful of bad precedents in your home.
  If
  your behavior is harming your child’s future, you want to take responsibility now. There is always time to make a positive change: no more bribery for doing chores; no more giving in because it is easy; no more trying to be the nice guy; no more being controlled
  by guilt.
  
• Key 3: Foster kindness and gratitude.
  Help your children to appreciate you, and show them how you appreciate them. Use the 20 Second Sound Bite rule to avoid lecturing.
  
• Key 4: Foster kindness and gratitude.
  Learn to say “no” in a supportive, loving way, and teach your children how to cope with disappointment.
  
• Key 5: Foster kindness and gratitude.
  Practice couch empathy, and point out others’ good will and the good will of your children.
  
• Key 6: Foster kindness and gratitude.
  Focus on the opportunities your children have to take responsibility to affect others’ lives, the family, and themselves. Allow them to experience the negative consequences of their actions.
  

• Key 7: Model kindness and gratitude.
  Avoid selfish statements and actions in front of the children. Avoid coveting and focusing on your wants. Teach the difference between WANTS and NEEDS.
  
• Key 8: Practice process praise only.
  Always praise effort over ability. We are all born with abilities, and they are a natural part of who we are, but they do not make us better people. When you praise your children’s effort, they will learn to work harder and reach further— because they learn from you that it is a good thing to put in a strong effort.
  

  Gratitude action
  If you are prone to praising your child the “person” instead of the “process”, then you need to switch it up right away! Changing to process praise will help your children learn that effort is required for success, and this makes them more likely to be kind, giving, and thankful people.
  

6

Gratitude
Journaling

“Some of my greatest blessings call me Daddy.”

[Anonymous]

A gratitude journal is one of the linchpins of positive psychology, and an exciting way to teach your children how to appreciate their daily lives, feel happier, build up their immune systems, and sleep better.

The benefits of gratitude journaling are consistently emerging in research as having a powerful impact on the psychological, physical, and social experience of adults and children. Since we cannot deny the positive effects of using a gratitude journal, in our practice, we find ourselves recommending it, not only to children, but also to their parents as well as couples. We suggest doing the practice of Gratitude Journaling together, and individually.

Notes from the Real Parenting Lab on the Benefit of Journaling

Remember Miles, the child that got everything he wanted from his over-indulgent parents, Don and Gabby? We worked with their family over a few months, initially implementing small changes in family dynamics and, slowly but steadily, introducing the concept of appreciation and gratitude using
multisensory experiences.

After just a few short months of gratitude journaling—an exercise we had the whole family engaged in—Miles started to pay more attention to what was occurring around him. He mentioned during one session that, “Every evening my family would speak about our grati
tude journal after dinner.” He would stay and participate instead of rushing off to play video games. Initially, he reported hating it, but when we followed up with him just a couple of weeks later, we could see a real change. Miles’ mother also reported that his grandmother had been surprised one day, when asked by him what she was grateful for.

Now, don’t get us wrong. Miles looked at us at first as if we were daft with our “notice the tiny details in life” stuff. At first he said that nothing much would impress him beyond his parents winning the lottery, or dinosaurs coming back to life. But we made a game of it, and we challenged him to find the tiny things that were worthwhile. It didn’t take long to ignite his enthusiasm.

The journal entries began with just a single line focusing on his multisensory experience. Miles wrote:

“I appreciate my fluffy pillow when my heads touches it at night,
it’s soft.”

“I appreciate the sound of rain because it helps me to feel relaxed when I’m nervous about going to school.”

“I appreciate the taste and tingling of strawberry Pop Rocks candy exploding in my mouth.”

Miles took to journaling extremely well and, by investigating his actions, thoughts, and experiences, he learned to have gratitude for both his parents. He wrote:

“I like my journal. It makes me think about stuff in different ways.”

There are some kids that, without any prompting at all, will detail their sensory experiences when thinking about what they are grateful for. For instance, when we asked Madison, a 10-year-old girl we see, about any gratitude she might have for her favorite dinner, she described her mom’s turkey feast:

“Your mouth is drooling, and your taste buds are tingling as your mind is transferred to happy land—a world full of pies, candies, unicorns, and rainbows. And your stomach is having a dance party of goodness. And everyone is screaming because it is so good.”

Madison showed she understands the very essence of what we mean by
mindful appreciation
. And she is a natural at being attuned to the
multisensory experiences
that are worth paying attention to.

Why Should You Keep a Gratitude Journal?

Well, where should we start? By participating in the simple task of keeping a gratitude journal for as little as three weeks, researchers have found that participants reap many positive benefits. Actually, the results are quite overwhelming. More than one thousand people were studied, from school-aged children to seniors, and it was found that people who practice gratitude consistently reported the following benefits:

A
gratitude journal is a great way to ensure that the members of your family are consistently refocusing their attention on the good things that happen in their lives.

There was a time when we were limited in what we knew about neuroscience. The research was narrow, and experts believed that once an adult brain matured, it was fixed—meaning that people’s talents usually remained fixed over time.

Based on this old research, the “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” mantra was very relevant. However, new research on neuroplasticity indicates that the brain is far more complex than originally thought—with the ability to change rapidly under the right circumstances.

Simply put, if an adult loses the ability to see, their brain rewires itself, shrinking parts of the brain responsible for sight and creating new pathways to enhance other areas, such as smell, hearing. The plasticity of the brain can also be stimulated to grow and change if a person dedicates themselves to new experiences.

Gratitude Tip
Dr. Dweck has contributed to research on fostering a “growth mindset” and has found that it is not what you know but how you grow. Open the door to continued learning via self-examination, to find new knowledge, skills, and behaviors to change the way you perceive the world. Gratitude journaling is a big part of this.

Aside from literally rewiring it, gratitude journaling is a positive way to influence your brain to develop an
attitude of gratitude.
Journaling draws attention to the good things in your life, which promotes awareness, abundance, and appreciation throughout the day. Not only do you attract more kindness and gratitude, but you give more of it as well.

If a basic formula for happiness existed, the attitude of gratitude would be the key ingredient.

Should Your Children Keep a Gratitude Journal?

Studies have indicated that there is an impressive range of benefits to helping your children keep a gratitude journal every day. Gratitude journaling is the way to go if you would like you and your children to be happier and experience the benefits researchers have been reporting:

• Gratitude allows us to savor and acknowledge gifts that occur in the present.
  Our gratitude practice through journaling can help to slow us down and participate in life in a more mindful way. Gratitude journaling will then help your child focus on positive emotions. Your child will likely become more aware of positive experiences in their daily lives. Being happier by celebrating goodness is a universal tool that parents can give their children.
  
• Gratitude is a protective factor against negative emotions.
  Journaling is the shift from passive participation in life to actively appreciating the gifts around us. As we savor these gifts daily or weekly, it can buffer any negative emotions that you or your child may feel.
  
• Gratitude is a stress buffer.
  Positive thoughts and focused attention on goodness are safeguards against daily stressors.
  
• Gratitude increases your self-confidence.
  When you journal about the goodness around you, you cannot help but feel good inside.
  

A basic g
ratitude journal does not have to be pages and pages long. It is essentially a chance to reflect on your day in a positive way. For children or adults, a single line for the small, medium, and large things in a day is enough to get them thinking along the right lines. Savoring the experience of gifts, large and small, helps us to achieve goodness in our daily lives.

Exercise: Gratitude Coaching

Small (S), Medium (M), and Large (L) Gratitude

Please check which journal entries you consider to be
s
Appreciative but not essential, complements daily living
m
Valuable and adds meaning to daily living
L
Critical to daily living

When we recommend gratitude journaling to families, we emphasize that journaling is more effective once you are conscious of your decision to become more mindful of gratitude in your daily life. Make sure you talk to your child about it.

Depending on the child’s age, it is more beneficial to start with a single line and build your way up to longer, more in-depth entries. Focusing on people is also important, as being grateful for things can be superficial and empty.

One gratitude—enhancing tool you may suggest to your children as they learn how to journal, is to suggest that they take a moment to imagine their life or day without the things they are grateful for. For example, try to dig deep and imagine what life would be like with no fingers, or no ability to smell, or to never again enjoy their favorite dessert. This tool can help a child put things into a meaningful perspective and boost their appreciation, rather than simply creating a list of good things that happened to them.

If daily journaling seems a daunting way to begin, research has also indicated that even short journal entries
once or twice a week
carry significant overall mood and health benefits.

Three Steps to Making It Stick

In Emmons & McCullough’s 2003 study on gratitude, a group of young adults had been tasked with keeping daily journals of the things they were grateful for. The researchers assigned other young adult groups other topics to journal about, such as what annoyed them, or why they were better off than other people.

The results were quite significant over time. The young adults that kept gratitude journals showed greater increases in attention, enthusiasm, determination, and energy when compared with the control groups. Truly appreciating the positive aspects of our daily life has a powerful effect on the brain.

Gratitude Tip
By following the three-step process to making the information stick in your child’s mind, their brain will develop in positive ways. It opens them up to the good things in their lives and allows them to see the world from an entirely new perspective.

In our experience, we find that people absorb information best through a three-step process that allows us to remember or be mindful of the subject we are focusing on. By first
thinking it
, then
speaking it
, and then
writing it
, we can change our behavior and gradually fill our lives with a positive outlook.

Step 1: Thinking It

In positive psychology, behavior is influenced initially by the things we think about on a day-to-day basis. When your child begins a gratitude journal, they will start to think about the many things in their lives that they could be grateful for.

Eventually, this line of thought will allow them to appreciate things that they had previously taken for granted.

• The first step to gratitude is thinking about it.
  

GRATITUDE Tip
Thinking It
should occur on a regular basis.
Try connecting your thoughts to a daily activity.
SO if you are not a daily tooth-flosser, do not attach it to flossing. Instead, link thinking grateful thoughts to drinking water or getting dressed in the morning.

Gratitude is a practice, like any trait that you want to nurture. Just as intelligence is nothing without continuous learning, gratitude is nothing without daily application in your life.

A child who focuses on the positive is mentally strengthened: the simple act of thinking about all the things they are grateful for every day leads to a powerful cycle of positive thinking.

Conversely, you may want to counteract negative thinking in your child. If you find that they are preoccupied with pointless material wants and are weighed down by negative thoughts, practicing gratitude, with a bit of guidance from you, can change their mindset.

Thinking positive thoughts about what you are really grateful for in small, medium, and large ways always leads to greater understanding and a happier disposition. Children can be so easily bogged-down by material items which tend to distract them from the important things in life. These thankful thoughts help them rediscover what it really means to be happy and to feel better about themselves.

Step 2: Speaking It

If thinking about gratitude is the catalyst that opens you up to appreciating all the good things in your life, then speaking about it is the next logical step. When thoughts become ingrained in the human mind, they are spoken about more often.

You can always tell what a child is thinking because they will speak about it most often. It is a natural way to apply and explore what they have learned by realizing these thoughts through spoken words.

• Speaking about gratitude is the next logical step.