Following up on my recent post titled, 5 Dangerous Things Parents Should Do to Their Children, someone sent me this video, I Can't Believe We Made it, which demonstrates all of the so-called dangerous stuff past generations of children did (it used to be called "stuff all kids did") and still somehow survived. The video vividly shows [...]
It’s one thing to say you want to raise competent children. It’s an entirely different thing to know how to raise competent children. This post explores three practical ways in which you can help your children to become competent—and confident—people. Catchphrases for Competence My 8-year-old, Catie, came up with our family’s catchphrase for competence when [...]
Many of you may be familiar with the famous "marshmallow" experiments conducted by the psychologist Walter Mischel in 1960s and '70s. In the studies, 4-year-old children have two marshmallows (or another treat) placed in front of them and told that they can either eat one right away or wait to eat two when the researcher [...]
I just read an very interesting and thought-provoking article about the differences in child rearing around the world. The recommendations are very consistent with my own views on raising children.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gever Tully’s TED video of “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do” and agree with his thesis that parents these days are far too protective of their children. Paradoxically, in parents’ well-intentioned attempts at protecting their children from harm, they actually leave them less prepared for the real dangers that your kids will face later in life. I also concur that exposing kids to a little danger can be beneficial to their development. Exposure to what are for them risky experiences, such as using power tools, fire, or a pocket knife, can build confidence, resilience, competence, respect, and responsibility, as well as develop cognitive, emotional, and motor skills that will help children as they transition into adulthood. Of course, it’s easy for Mr. Tully to make this argument when he doesn’t have kids; he doesn’t have the hard-wired “protect your children to ensure their survival” instinct kick in at the first sign of danger. Though exposing children to Mr. Tully’s tangible dangers offers many benefits, I would argue that the dangers that he wants you to expose them to are far less threatening than they actually are because the potentially harmful consequences are immediate and will surely be mitigated by a watchful—though hopefully not overly intrusive—parent. In contrast, I would suggest that you can do five things to your children that are far more “dangerous,” yet will have a far greater impact on them as they develop.
Competence is an essential quality that children need to develop to become fully functioning adults. In fact, one thing that separates adults from children is the former's broad repertoire of capabilities that enable them to navigate the world including physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and practical skills. But competencies are necessary, but not sufficient to become [...]
I was recently interviewed for this article on how to develop self-esteem in your children. The writer did a nice job of covering all of the bases.
In recent years, our parenting culture began to send the message that competence was important for building self-esteem and that parents needed to do everything they can to convince their children how competent they were. All very reasonable, to be sure. However, that same parenting culture made a big mistake by telling parents that the way to instill competence in their children was to tell them how competent they were. Parents bought into this message and starting telling their children how smart and talented and wonderful they were. But here's the problem. Children can't be convinced that they are competent. When parents try to convince their children of how competent they are, they often have the exact opposite effect. There is this little thing called reality that children have to confront on a daily basis; life has a way of sending messages about competence that can be in sharp contrast to the out-sized messages of competence that parents send their children. When children are faced with the conflict between what their parents had told them about how good they are and what reality is telling them, the result is the bursting of the “You are the best” bubble that their parents blew up for them. The result: disappointment, hurt, and an actual loss of sense of competence. Let me be clear here: The only way for children to build a true sense of competence is through first-hand experience that includes travails, triumphs, struggles, setbacks, and successes.
Setting expectations for your children is an essential responsibility of parenting. Expectations communicate messages to your children about what’s important to you and establish a standard toward which your children can strive. But expectations can be double-edged swords. They can be a tremendous benefit to your children’s development or they can be weighty burdens that [...]
Competence is the most neglected contributor to self-esteem. So much emphasis in the “self-esteem movement” that began in the 1970s was placed on ensuring that children felt loved that the role of competence in developing self-esteem has either been ignored, minimized, or misapplied. Competence is so important because it provides the foundation on which children [...]