Technically Speaking

Happy end of the semester everybody!  This is a blog I wanted to use as somewhat of a conclusion to the school year and with that I understand that a lot of you may not have the time to respond and that is alright!  I encourage everybody to at least watch the video at the end of the blog!  

In a world where technology is consistently becoming more available and advanced, it is important for parents to set guidelines for their children when it comes to social media use.  Technology is awesome and it is amazing how much we can do and sometimes it is hard to think what life would be without it.  We use it to connect, to inform, to remember, to forget and for just about everything else.  I do not remember the last time I needed to print out directions, instructions, recipes or anything else of that nature.  Virtually everything is at our fingertips and it makes most things quite easy.  I almost can’t remember what life was like without my phone or my computer.  I feel like I “need” my phone for everything.  I can use it to talk to my friends, coworkers, parents and family.  I can use it to look up my schedule, watch my favorite television show, pay for my Starbucks drink or get a live stream of the Vikings losing. 

I work at a restaurant and I cannot count the amount of times that I have brought food out to a family and the children were too busy on their I-Pad to acknowledge that someone was serving them, bringing them their food and doing THEM a favor. I believe it is important for children to know that real conversations ALWAYS come before the ones we have through social media or by texting on our phones.  I previously worked at a summer camp for several years and we set aside one day a week in which children could have their cell phones, unless it was for an emergency in which they could use it sooner.

1. When it comes to technology and parent child relationships, what are a few guidelines that are important when it comes to electronics use?

2. Something to think about with all of the different gadgets that are available, when is the right age for a child to have their own phone, computer, or other technical device?   

Custodial Grandparents

Hey everybody,

In class we reviewed some of the different types of grandparents, and have discussed what our personal relationships with our grandparents are like. I would like to take a moment to talk about custodial grandparents, and how custodial grandparents act as a buffer from the system when their adult children are unable to raise their own children.

Here is a link to a video about two custodial grandparents: Agnes Flores and Jimmy Mills who are raising several of their grandchildren themselves, both families being below the federal poverty level. 

 Grandfamilies: When Grandparents Raise Grandchildren - YouTube

What are your initial reactions to this video? I'm curious to know if anyone has any personal experience with having a custodial grandparent and can share how this unique family structure has affected you personally or your family, or if you have observed this type of family in the lives of others you know. 

What do you think the main reasons for custodial grand parenting are? Do you think these grandparents feel grateful for having the opportunity to help their grandchildren who are caught in the middle of difficult circumstances, or do you think they feel like they have taken on more burden and responsibility than they anticipated having at their old age? Is there anything you believe the government, community, neighborhood, or schools should do in order to support these custodial grandparents? 

Would love your thoughts!

What will you do with your parents?

In class we have been talking about the adult-adult relationships within a family and sandwich generations. The life expectancy of humans continue to increase as technology is created to prolong everyone's health.   When our parents become a part of the older generation and we enter adulthood, what will we do with our parents as their health begins to deteriorate? 

Many cultures make the decision to have their parents live with them as they become unable to take care of themselves. My grandfather lived with my aunt and uncle until he passed away. He was a very big part of my cousin's lives and acted as another primary caregiver. My grandparents on my dad's side, up until a few years ago, lived in a townhouse by themselves. My aunt and uncle recently moved in with them because of their own financial reasons. If it weren't for that my grandparents would have continued to live by themselves. In my opinion, the return of my aunt and uncle living with them is less of them trying to take care of my grandparents but more of my grandparents taking care of them.

Traditional Cambodian households have their parents move in with their daughters. I'm an only child, so the task of taking in my parents would automatically go to me. My dad is Caucasian and my mom is Cambodian. My dad believes that they will live in a house or care facility that is close to me. My mom on the other hand, refuses to be put in a nursing home. She would rather kill herself than be forced to live in a nursing home. I personally would be more than okay to have my parents live with me when they need it. It would allow them to spend ample amount of time with their grandchildren and it would be the most cost effective. I would love to be able to afford to live in a house with a big enough yard to build my parents a living space that is not connected to the main house. This would allow all of us to keep some semblance of privacy as well as have them close enough if anything happened to them.

What will you do to help your parents when they are no longer able to fully care for themselves? What cultural aspects influence your decision? What would your ideal living situation look like for you and your parents?

Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships

Just as we have parents, we have grandparents. Most of us have four (two grandmothers, two grandfathers) but the number and genders can vary. Particularly variable is our relationship with our grandparents. Factors like geographic distance can affect our connections. Our own parents' relationships with their parent(s) can definitely affect how much and in ways we see and understand our grandparents.

In the lecture slide set from last week, grandparents are identified to offer a variety of supports and resources for grandchildren. And their relationships run along a continuum from remote to companionate to custodial. Increasingly in our US society grandparents raise their grandchildren - for a period of time, for the duration of the child's life, through living in extended family households (such as the teenage mother and her child who live with her parents). For many children, grandparents are also 'cultural conservators,' maintaining the norms, customs and values of our heritages. 

Please share a bit about your own relationships with your grandparents. All of them (depending how many) or maybe a single grandparent who was/is meaningful to you. How would you describe your relationship? What does the grandparent do for you and support your development?

This is my characterization of one of my grandparents. My grandfather (Earle "Grandpa" Powers, 1898-1984) was my mother's father. He and my grandmother lived in Ohio while my family lived in Illinois. That meant that contacts were occasional (Christmas and summer) but consistent while I was growing up. And in my adulthood I put effort into visiting them. I only knew my grandfather in his retirement so he was a symbol of adulthood who pursued hobbies rather than the demands of work. He sang, went to the Masons, smoked cigars, painted, read and traveled. I loved knowing an adult who had so many interests. He gave me someone to love being with and look forward to visiting when the majority of adults in my childhood were those I had to be responsible to. In turn I wasn't someone he needed to be responsible for (his active parenting focused on my mother and uncle). He also gave me history to my mother's side of the family; a dimension of her that as a child I didn't understand or tangibly see.

So, my relationship with my grandfather on our continuum was companionate. And he gave me a role model, a sense of connection to the past and a wider, larger sense of 'family,' and the emotional support of someone I felt comfortable with and someone else who had value for me.

What are your connections to grandparents?

The "Sandwich Generation"

One topic that we started to touch on in class is the concept of the "sandwich generation", which refers to parents who are sandwiched between trying to raise their own children, while also caring for their elderly parents.  Many of these caregivers feel a constant struggle between being able to provide for their parents, while also making sure their kids are getting enough attention. As more and more people in the United States are living longer than ever before, these types of caregivers are becoming more and more prominent. The majority of these caregivers is working full time jobs on top of these responsibilities, and the financial and emotional stress can become very overwhelming. 

Here is a short video about some of these parents’ stories:

https://youtu.be/x-PJfE5eMz0

Before my grandma passed away this last fall, my mom was one of these millions of Americans who were taking on this role. She was working full time with two high daughters, while also having to take care of my grandma's basic needs on a daily basis. Have you experienced the “sandwich generation” in your own family? How did it affect the relationship between your parent and grandparent (or other relative)?

If you haven’t experienced this personally in your own families, how do you think this role reversal would affect the relationship? Do you have any suggestions for how parents who are caring for their own parents can maintain the relationship and reduce unhealthy stress?

Emerging Adulthood

One stage of the cycle of life is emerging into adulthood. Starting to move out of mom
and dad’s shack into a much more intriguing new world of opportunities, a different sense of
privileges, and new responsibilities.  A time where you can explore your identity, careers, and
meet new people.  Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychologist who conducted research on emerging
adults, states that young adults want a lot out of life- a job that's well-paid and personally
meaningful and a lasting bond with a partner.  He also categorized five features of emerging
adults (shown below).  Before you take a look at the features, think about when you first moved out of your parent’s house.  What was that like? What was that drive to your college dorm like? What did your parents do that make the transition smooth or maybe rough? Did you have feelings of feeling in between, feeling neither an adolescent nor adult?

Five features of emerging adults
As psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett describes it, emerging adulthood can be defined as an:

- Age of identity exploration. Young people are deciding who they are and what they
want out of work, school and love.

- Age of instability. The post-high school years are marked by repeated residence changes,
as young people either go to college or live with friends or a romantic partner. For most,
frequent moves end as families and careers are established in the 30s.

- Age of self-focus. Freed of the parent- and society-directed routine of school, young
people try to decide what they want to do, where they want to go and who they want to be
with--before those choices get limited by the constraints of marriage, children and a
career.

- Age of feeling in between (neither adolescent nor adult). Many emerging adults say
they are taking responsibility for themselves, but still do not completely feel like an adult.

- Age of possibilities. Optimism reigns. Most emerging adults believe they have good
chances of living "better than their parents did," and even if their parents divorced, they
believe they'll find a lifelong soul mate.

Which of these themes are the most striking to you? Which area do you think you fall
under in the most or had experience with?  Arnett stated:

"If happiness is the difference between what you expect out of life and what you actually
get, a lot of emerging adults are setting themselves up for unhappiness because they
expect so much.” 

Do you feel the same way as him? Feel free to elaborate and/or give
examples.

- Joey Stark

How involved is involved? How involved is overinvolved?

As we move up the child age scale and talk about young adults and emerging adulthood, we focus of course on what relationship dynamics between parents and children continue to look like and what that means for the child's development, and for the parents.

Consider this news item from a few years back:

Watching this, what are your thoughts? What are parents' motivations to be 'helicopter-ing' to their young adults? How might the child's own actions promote or discourse helicopter behavior? What societal factors reinforce or act to discourage parents' hovering and involvement in young adults' lives and decision-making?

Consider the other extreme. If children leave home at say 18, and go it alone, then what? Should parents be uninvolved for the most part; more on the receiving end of information and events? If we think about the scenario in the clip above, would you prefer that the young woman simply tell her parents when she gets a job?

Parents Using Social Media to Respond to Social Media Threats to Children

About a year ago a father from Prior Lake, Minnesota posted a video on YouTube that went viral. The video is below (it's subtitled in Spanish. The original video link may have been removed. This one shows the entire piece, though).

Watch the video and consider the following:

How was social media used by teenagers (in this case Brad's daughter and her friends and other kids), and to what effect? What is your reaction to the incident as Brad describes it? From our reading, and from your experience, does that surprise you?

What prompted Brad (the dad) to use social media to air his opinion?
What are the benefits to his using this forum? Are there any consequences? Consider others connected to the situation. 

Do you agree or disagree with this dad's using YouTube in this way?

Conflict with Parents and Adolescence

Teenagers experience multiple changes in relationships with others, and their identity. They change physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Teenagers start to develop new independence, and may even want to see how far they can push it with their parents. They might come home after their curfew, ignore homework, and not do chores.

Adolescence is a process, so parents have to learn how to work with it rather than against it. It is important that parents should continue to love, support, and be a guidance along the way. Teenagers start to learn new ways of thinking, and start to focus on themselves more. As a child, they are unaware of their independence and believe that they have to do what they are told, and the parents have the power to make them behave the way they want them to.

One day, the parents child is kind, loving, going to bed early, following the rules, dresses appropriately, and does their homework without a problem. Then one day their child turns 12 years old and becomes an adolescent and out of no where they start having attitudes, ignoring them, is on the computer talking to their friends for hours, and stops doing their homework. It can be hard for a lot of parent's watching their child grow up and become teenagers as conflict uprises. The teenager starts to pull themselves away from the parents and family, and create their own independent social network of friends. Reducing time with family often causes conflict with parents and teenagers because of the increasing time the teen spends with their peers.
Other factors that cause conflict between the parent and the teenager can be:
-Not being understanding of the situtaion
-Not liking their peers
-What is appropriate to wear
-Judgment
-Not listening
-Feeling embarrassed
-Parents having unrealistic expectations
-When teenagers challenge the parents authority

As their prefrontal cortex matures, teenagers start to develop more control over impulses, make judgments better, and be able to reason better. When their prefrontal cortex is not fully wired, teenagers tend to take more risks, and poor decision making because the brain takes a second look at the situation and reasons about that particular behavior. Since their brains are still developing, the have not mastered their executive functioning quite yet.

Executive Functioning:
-Time management
-Organization
-Task initiation
-Short-term memory
-Self-restraint

When parents get frustrated and cause conflict with their teenager about not handing in their homework assignment, it is because they do not have the brain capacity are not fully developed yet.

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/teens/conflict-with-your-teen/conflict-with-your-teen

The link above talks about how communication is very important when a conflict arises with the teenager and parent. The first thing in the article says is...

"Good communication is vital during conflict. When we asked 5,000 adults what they wished their parents had done differently during times of conflict, they gave these three responses most often:

1. They wished their parents had listened more.
2. They wished they could have talked about their feelings more.
3. They wished they talked to their parents more."

All three of those responses are related to communication.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/teenagers-and-communication

The second link discusses how it is different when you communicate with a child and when you communicate when a teenager as they develop ideas, values and beliefs that are different than the parents. Also giving examples on what kind of issues that can affect communication with teenagers. Below the list of issues in the second link, you will see "General Communication Tips with Teenager".

Please discuss the following questions:

1. What do you think about their suggestions? 
2. Can you think of any more suggestions that is important when communicating to a teenager? 
3. When growing up, how did your parents communicate with you? 
4. Anything you wish your parents could have done differently, or do you think they did a good job with communicating with you?

Parenting Adolescents

In addition to Thursday's class discussion regarding gender acceptance in society, this week we discussed about the relationship between parents and adolescents. Unlike the infant and toddler years, during the adolescent years, our body has the most drastic developmental changes. Physically, the body changes during puberty with an increase in hormones. Cognitively, the mind becomes more developed and our reasoning becomes more abstract. We begin to develop a sense of identity and begin to look for future partners. We all developed differently, to become the unique individuals we are today, due to the diverse parenting styles that our parents have used towards us.

In the article, Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents, there are 5 significant ways that parents can promote healthy adolescent development and create a strong, positive relationship between parents and their child. Choose one of the 5 ways and give an example of how your parents may have effectively or not effectively used them to shape you to be the adolescent you were.

For example, my parents were often clear with their boundaries and gave strict rules on what I can and can not do. Being a Hmong daughter, it was even more difficult for me to go out and have fun like my brothers. In the Hmong culture, and most Asian cultures, women were often more limited than men. Women had an image to uphold and bringing shame to the family by acting outside of the "norm" was not acceptable. Therefore, my parents were strict and were rarely flexible with my sisters and I. This resulted in me becoming a rebellious teenager who went out and disobeyed my parent's rules. This created a strain in our relationship and caused us to butt heads on a daily. I believe, if my parents had been more flexible and more fair, I would have been a more honest teen and our relationship would have been better. Of course now, being a young adult, I am more responsible and I barely go out like how I used to. Thinking back, I'm still grateful for their parenting ways because it taught me to develop my morals and think more about those who care for me rather than being so focused on myself and "fun".

Gender Acceptance in Society

This week, mainly on Thursday, we talked about gender as a concept as well as the role it plays in today's society. Jenifer McGuire, our guest lecturer, was able to really illustrate the large stigma that society still places on those who don't necessarily conform to the gender norms that are in place. Throughout her lecture she gave examples of trans individuals who came out to their family and were completely shut out or abandoned. As one could imagine, being treated like this by individuals has been linked to the rate of transgender suicide being among the highest of any other demographic. We have come a long way in the treatment of trans individuals but have a lot of progress to make. Just last week in North Carolina, their governor signed a bill that blocks transgender individuals use of the bathroom with the gender they identify with. This has caused a lot of outrage among people all over the country, showing that there are still many out there with criticisms. What do you think of this bill? Should bathrooms be mandated strictly by biological gender?

As we read about in the article 5 Basics of Parenting Adolescents, in order to influence healthy development, it is important to love and connect with your teen, as well as monitor, guide, model, and advocate for them. I think that this is especially important especially for transgender individuals. If their own family isn't there for support, as stated in lecture, it is likely that negative impacts will occur. Personally, I have a friend with a transgender sibling and his family has been very supportive. Because of this, whenever I go over there to hang out, everything is normal but she has talked about stories of people not being so accepting. If you know a transgender individual, how has the support of their family impacted their wellness? If you don't know any, how would you react if someone close to you came to you with the news that they were transgender?

Websites:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/north-carolina-gender-bathrooms-bill/
http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/raising-teens/five-basics.html

Divorce: Impact on Parent, Child, and Their Relationship

Today we briefly began to discuss the overwhelmingly common effect that divorce and separation can have on parents, children, and their relationship. We have also been provided with a few great resources on how this change affects so many dimensions of a parent-child relationship.

The University of Minnesota's "Parent's Forever" handbook provides parents with dozens of free, in-depth resources to help cope with these changes. The resources come in three different categories: taking care of yourself, taking care of your children, and how to be successful in co-parenting. Also in this handbook are examples of the child's rights and how they should correspond with the parents' responsibilities. If the child's rights and the parents' responsibilities aren't aligning, the divorce or separation can have lasting negative impacts on the child, and their relationship with their parents. Some of these impacts include:

• Dropping out of high school
• Being unemployed
• Having troubled marriages and relationship challenges
• Having weaker ties with either or both parents
• Experience symptoms of psychological distress, including depression
• See long-term impacts into adulthood in many children

To avoid these potential impacts, the previously mentioned rights and responsibilities need to be met. Please choose one set of rights/responsibilities (or provide us with an example not listed) from the UMN Parent's Forever handbook and further explain how making sure that both are met will prevent negative impacts on the parent, child, and parent-child relationship. 

If you have been through a divorce or separation, and you don't mind sharing,what were important things that you and your parents did to alleviate the stress that comes with it? If you have not been through a divorce or separation, what are your thoughts on it and how it affects parent, child, and parent-child relationship? If divorce was your only option, what would you do to assure your child keeps their childhood, instead of being burdened with the stress of your divorce?

Parent Involvement in Children's Academic Success: Your Perspective

In class on Wednesday we began to discuss (too briefly, I'm afraid) parent engagement with children's learning. We touched on why it's a good thing for parents to be involved in their children's schools and in their learning, who benefits, and what involvement looks like.

Work by Joyce Epstein at Johns Hopkins U (probably the most significant scholar in this area, of which there are many) has identified parent involvement as activities seen and unseen by teachers and schools:

• parenting
• communicating (with the school/teachers)
• volunteering
• learning at home
• decision-making
• collaboration with the community

Consider how each of these support children's learning. I'd guess your own parents did many or all of these when you were in school - and may still do these in support of you in college.

Involvement is good for children - when parents expect their children to learn and to well in school they are more likely to do so. And involvement in what children are learning, how and the school context that supports their learning means that parents have valuable information to assist children. And they are valuable complements (through homework help, reinforcing school policies, etc) to what the school is trying to achieve. And when children see their parents and schools as partners, the psychological and academic base for learning is more stable.

Consider how this involvement might also benefit teachers, and schools, and parents themselves. In the broadest sense, when homes and schools are on the same page, everyone gains, because they are all (theoretically) working towards the same goals of healthy, happy and well-educated children who are the future generation for society.


Please reflect on your life in elementary school and possibly later (through middle or junior high school, high school and perhaps now in college) and share a bit about how your parent or parents were involved. Use Epstein's categories to describe how the involvement. Please also share more that adds to our discussion about the process and impacts of parent involvement. Like...

• how you felt or feel that this helped you in school (if it did), or otherwise affected you. 
• how that involvement might have benefited others - your teachers, the school itself and especially how it might have had an influence on your parents' own happiness or their development as adults, and 
• how it affected your relationship with them
• what helped or challenged your parent(s) being involved with your schooling?

The Homework Dilemma

This week we're talking about parenting during middle childhood when children are in elementary school. Skills and competencies encouraged during these years maintain children's sense of self-development, initiative, competence and promote their cognition, peer relations, and physical abilities. As discussed in the previous post (and more in class) is the issue with overindulging children, parents hovering and "doing for rather than doing with."

An area that plagues many households, stresses children and pushes parents toward the upper bound of their resistance to overparent is homework. While we advise parents to let children do their own work, and experts warn about the dangers of promoting 'performance' over 'mastery' mindsets when parents push children to excel (see this piece from Time), increasingly this is tough for families. Why?

• A big reason is that demands on students for learning (meaning homework) are increasing as school districts escalate standardized testing, and teachers and schools have to prepare children to excel on tests and in schoolwork overall. School funding is tied to student test performance progress. And in some cases, so is teacher's merit. 

• Also, demands on more sophisticated learning on topics around Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (aka STEM) are increasing in earlier grades. And parents see their children come home with expectations for language learning, doing experiments, calculation with new math, and problem solving in ways that weren't taught when they were in school.

• Beyond and within all this is the sense of competition that starts very early. Grades and test performance to qualify for college entrance that comes into focus, not in freshman year of high school but in first and second grade. Because going to the 'right' schools and gaining entrance to the 'right' programs early on means opportunities that will only help with college entrance. 

So, when the 6, 8 or 10 year old comes home with a backpack filled with projects and papers that mean several hours of study, what is a parent to do? Although they may object (and THIS piece in Time talks about the dangers of too much homework too early and parents' right to refuse for their child to do homework), few do.

What do you suggest? What worked for you in your families when it came to homework when you were in elementary school (or later, perhaps)? What role did your parents play in supporting you to get it done (or did they step up to the demands that the school was placing on you)?

In particular, what might a parent do when they perceive that the demands on their child are mismatched with what is healthy for the child/ what the child is capable of? Remember that although all children develop in the same ways, all children develop capacities at different rates. A parent may have a child with dyslexia (undiagnosed), or one who takes longer to memorize. How does the parent help the child to retain his or her sense of self and self-competence when they perceive that the school work and school performance and social/peer context might be one that is less of a 'fit' to that child? 

Thinking of the Future for Overindulge Children

Overindulging children can have serious consequences for their futures.  A study by Dr. Dan Kindlon of Harvard University found that, as teenagers, the majority will use drugs, and many will have problems with self-centeredness, anger, and disordered eating.  By limiting their ability to achieve age-appropriate development and learn life skills for their future, parents have inadvertently created a situation where they love their child but the child may not love them back. As these teenagers head towards adulthood, they will find themselves without the emotional maturity and psychological tools to succeed independently.

So why do parents all into a pattern of overindulging their children?  Most do not intend to hurt their children’s future and many may not even understand what they are doing.  However, by doing too much for their children, parents who think they are helping, may actually be harming. And the consequences for the child can be far reaching, holding them back from fully reaching adulthood until well into their thirties.

Parents may overindulge for many reasons, some becoming over involved as a way of protecting their child, or others giving too many gifts to placate their own guilt or make up for their own inadequacies.   Still others believe having successful children will make improve their own image, or that they will lose their child’s love if they do not provide and indulge in excess.  It seems that many parents have slipped into a pattern of insecurity and confusion in regards to their role in raising their children.  One piece of advice given by Mary Jane Burson, a family life therapist, is to focus on the future and to think of  “the kind of adults they are creating”. 

As young adults, many of us are in positions to see the results of good and bad parenting all around us.  In light of this, what is some parenting advice in regards to overindulgence and preparing children for adulthood that you would give?  What is something that you learned from you parents that has served you well as you moved or are moving into independent adulthood?

Promoting Self-efficacy in Children

Building off the previous post by Prof. Walker, I’d like to talk about self-efficacy, a term coined by Alfred Bandura. Self-efficacy is the extent of a person’s belief in his/her own ability to complete tasks and reach goals successfully. For example, somebody with high self-efficacy is more likely to stick to a challenging activity without surrendering.

Higher self-efficacy is linked to:

• better ability to think productively by applying positive thinking skills when facing a challenge
• higher motivation
• stronger effort put into an activity or task
• greater resilience
• lower vulnerability to stress and depression

Evidently, nurturing self-efficacy in children is quite important for their successes in future.

Self-esteem vs. self-efficacy

Self-esteem is an opinion one holds about one's self-worth or self-value, which without a doubt influences self-efficacy. However, high self-esteem by itself does not give a child an optimistic attitude and willingness to persist when experiencing resistance. A child develops these characteristics through self-efficacy. If one’s self-efficacy in an area is much lower than their ability, they will likely under-challenge themselves. However, if self-efficacy is much higher than actual ability, they may over-challenge themselves, set unrealistic goals, and experience failure and frustration, that’s why parents need to nurture realistic self-efficacy in their children. Taking into account the following four building blocks can help promoting self-efficacy:

Sense of mastery.

When a child attributes a success to internal, stable, and global factors (personal effort, capabilities), he will experience a sense of mastery and this will reinforce his self-efficacy. When a child attributes success to external, unstable,  and specific factors, (luck, lenient grading etc), he will not experience a sense  of mastery or efficacy.

Observing others.

Seeing someone who is similar to oneself work hard to achieve a  goal or overcome an obstacle contributes to our belief that we, too, can successfully negotiate our

environment. For example, if a child sees  another one climb to the top of a hill after several attempts, the child might think “if he can do it, I can, too.” The more similar  the child feels to the person he is observing, the stronger the effect the other person’s successes or  failures will be on the child’s beliefs about her own ability to succeed.

Direct persuasion by others.

Children’s beliefs about their ability to master a situation are influenced by what they hear from adults or peers. Those who receive strong messages that they have the skills and capabilities to handle a specific situation are more likely to put in greater effort and to persist. Such feedback cannot consist of general or empty pep talks (“You can do anything.”) but rather should reflect the child’s real strengths and be specific (“You can think of a creative solution.”).

Mood.

Positive emotions and mood strengthen perceptions of efficacy and negative ones weaken them. The positivity enables children to see more solutions to problems they face, which strengthens their positivity, which further enhances their ability to cope with challenges, and so on.

What do you think of these four building blocks of self-efficacy? In which ways can parents organize and structure activities for their children to address those and to promote self-efficacy?

Encouraging Success through the Appropriate Kind of Praise

As we move from talking about correcting mis-behavior to encouraging positive behavior we enter the territory of tasks that our society loves to see: kids being responsible, kids succeeding in school, kids being good kids.

Starting with young children, research has examined a variety of practices by parents and others that 'shape' behavior, to recall a term from Skinner. Coaching and modeling to children, giving them tasks that they can reasonably accomplish, and rewarding and praising them are a few.

Praise is a particularly important, because children adore the adults who love them. Yet it can be a sticky tactic because parents and teachers often use it in ways not really helpful to longterm benefit. Research by Carol Dweck on praise with children is very interesting. Here's a link to an item about this from a few years back that puts in a parent's perspective.

Dweck's research, that the video below nicely captures in a few minutes, is on the power of giving children a 'growth mindset' over a 'fixed mindset.' A growth mindset comes from praise for effort towards a task that helps them believe that there is potential for improvement with additional initiative. A growth mindset encourages persistence toward a task even when it become more challenging (like life!). The fixed mindset comes when we praise children with a label, like 'intelligence' ("You are so smart!" "What a smart boy you are!") that rewards children for being something. Given challenging tasks they may opt out fearing that they won't be perceived as intelligent, or they may take on the belief that they aren't intelligent if a task is too challenging.

Consider this with young children and the kinds of tasks that we might ask them to do - like learn to brush their teeth, put their toys away, be kind to a younger brother, share a toy. (These might seem pretty simple but to a 3 year old they are physical and social problems to be solved.) Or you might think of a more tangible problem like learning to recognize letters (for early reading), understanding shape differences, or categorizing animals. What might be some great things that parents and other caregivers can say to offer children a 'growth mindset'? 

AND relevant to our class - how might using this kind of praise HELP promote the parent-child relationship?