To Teach Children Optimism, Teach “The View”
Many of us are familiar with the story of the mother who tried to teach her twins something about optimism and pessimism at Christmas. One twin was an optimist, “always seeing the bright side,” the other a pessimist, “a chronic complainer.” She wanted each to be more balanced in their view.
The mother thought she could achieve this new balance in perspective by giving the optimist a negative experience and the pessimist a positive one. On Christmas Day the pessimist received a horse and the optimist a package of “horse doo-doo.” What do you think happened?
The optimist eagerly unwrapped the package and immediately exclaimed with gleeful excitement upon finding the horse doo-doo, “Where is the horse?” The pessimist, out in the front yard looking over the pony with a red ribbon tied in its main, was found to be complaining: “Oh no, not a horse - now I will have to clean up its stall, brush and bath it, feed it and take care of it.”
Why did the mother’s teaching strategy fail? It failed because she did not realize that optimism is about “the view” of an event. Events, even apparent tragedies, are neither positive nor negative, only we humans make them so with our view.
What is an “Optimistic Child?”
Martin Seligman, author of “The Optimistic Child,” tells us that the quintessential children’s story for teaching optimism is “The Little Engine that Could.” In essence, the story is about taking on a challenge and overcoming incredible difficulties and odds.
According to Dr. Russ in his daily Moment-to-Moment Optimism blog (www.drrussbuss.com), children who have been raised optimistically are able to:
- Let go of a negative or setback in a matter of moments.
- Use failure and setbacks as opportunities to learn.
- Focus on what they “can” control
- Seek out challenging tasks and goals.
- Expect and plan for roadblocks and obstacles.
- Know how and when to use creative problem solving strategies.
- Seek collaboration with and inspiration from others.
Why Raise an Optimistic Child?
Ironically, children of the “Great Depression” are noted by Tom Brokaw in “The Greatest Generation” as perhaps the most optimistic and accomplishment-oriented generation in a century or more. Many have equated the current tough time including a recession, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and multiple, major environmental disasters with the Great Depression.
Children not only need to face these “tough times” with the self-confidence that creative solutions can be sought and found, but they also must be prepared to cope with an ever rapidly changing society in arenas of technology, science, and cross cultural understanding.
We believe that if today’s children learn the skills of living optimistically in every moment, they, like Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation,” will be able to quickly adapt to the challenges that lie ahead and create a better, more livable, more understanding and harmonious world in which to live.
Parenting Strategies for Teaching Optimism
Use the Strategy of Structured Responsiveness
A quick response from the parent to an infant’s cry sets the foundation for the learned optimism belief: “action-begets-desired-outcome.” Learned at this early age, the foundation for the belief is hard wired into the infant’s nervous system. The child learns to internalize that “the world is a place where I can act to get my needs met.”
Establishing structure and regular routines teach the child that the world is predictable, safe, and supportive. A foundation for an optimistic outlook on life is established.
Keep the valuable stuff up high and the dangerous stuff behind locked doors. In so doing the parent rarely has to admonish the toddler and young child for exploring and trying new things.
Encourage Emergent Independence to Build Self-Confidence
Don’t worry about the possibility of spilled milk. Barely ten months old, Dr. Russ’s son held up his bottle full of milk and gestured at the “tippy-cup.” After removing the nipple and pouring the milk into the cup, Dr. Russ handed it back to him. Young Matt eagerly drank all the contents. Feeling competent and empowered, Matt never wanted a bottle again.
From this experience, Dr. Russ learned how important it is to recognize when the young child is ready and willing to try something new, more advanced. Let the child try it, don’t inhibit him by saying: “Oh you are too young for the ‘tippy-cup. You might spill your milk.”
No Whining Please!
“Sweat it Out!” Every counselor Dr. Russ had over four summers said this to any camper whenever he began to whine and complain. We advise parents to use it with their kids who are looking for a “pity party.” It is a show stopper. Whenever it was said to Dr. Russ, he realized that he wasn’t going to get any further with his whining and complaining and that the counselor was telling him that he was strong enough and capable enough to deal with whatever difficulty he thought he couldn’t handle in that moment.
Teach that Life is One Continuous Opportunity to Learn
Provide verbal reward, praise, and encouragement for a child’s progress and mastery of something difficult rather than something easy. Break a hard task or complicated skill down into teeny-tiny steps. As soon as one is mastered, pile on the verbal praise, then go to the next step. Keep up the praise, step by step.
Demonstrate and talk about the enjoyment of sustained effort, whether it’s untangling a ball of string, sticking with a jigsaw puzzle, falling back in “Candy Land” or “Chutes and Ladders,” or trying out for a new sport.
Tie a child’s self-evaluation to longer term effort and personal mastery rather than to moment-to-moment fluctuations in performance. Teach the child: “Be better than yourself – not the guy next door.” We can always try to improve - do a little better than last time, make one more foul shot, knock a half-second off the swim time, spend five more minutes on math homework - but we can’t always make more shots, swim faster or get better math grades than the guy next door. In fact focusing on besting the guy next door often results in less success because the child is focused outside him/herself and not internally on the strategies of self-improvement.
Learn to Engage in the Parent-Child Dialogue of Optimism
Avoid yelling and blaming for mistakes. Yelling and blaming for mistakes instills a fear and anxious response, teaching the child to be cautious and avoid risk taking. Self-worth is also demeaned and diminished. Instead just say, when the milk is spilled, “No matter how frustrated you are that it made the chicken and peas float on your dinner plate, accidents happen, not to worry, let’s just clean it up.”
Learn non-evaluative conversing. Does this conversation sound familiar: Parent: “How was your day.” Child: “Ok.” Parent: “What did you do at school today.” Child: “Nothing.” End of conversation. Why?
The child is expecting an “evaluative conversation” that she anticipates might go something like this: Child: “I got a “C” on my spelling test.” Parent: “What? How could you? We studied all week!” The child learns to avoid the criticism and interpersonal conflict. Want your child to talk to you after school? Start by telling them something interesting, funny, or informative about your day. Self-disclosure (appropriate to the child’s developmental level) begets reciprocal self-disclosure.
Use daily breakfast, dinner, and bedtime conversations to review and discuss the events of the day and how to take the optimistic view. Talk about positive “success stories” and how these can keep on happening. When it comes to discussing a negative, setback, defeat, or failure talk about what could have been worse and/or finding a “silver lining” or “golden opportunity” in the ashes of disaster.
When riding in the car have a conversation about taking on a challenge task. The parent can start by describing something she did that day. For example: Parent: “Hey kids, guess what, I am really proud of myself because I met my ‘challenge goal’ for today. I spent five more minutes on the exercise bike this morning. What challenge goal are you going to try today?” Children’s challenge goals can be in any arena including sports, spending more time studying math, speaking-up in class, volunteering for an activity, doing an extra chore, or consoling a child being teased.
Teach that Failure is Always an Opportunity to Learn
Do give the opportunity to fail and try again. In October of 1952, Dr. Russ’s family packed up everything and moved to the Philadelphia suburbs. He was in 2nd grade. Having just learned to ride his bike the summer before, he was anxious to try his new learned skill by riding it to school, now that they lived within a mile. He assured his parents that he knew the way despite the new neighborhood. He got to school just fine.
But somehow or another, he couldn’t reverse course and figure out the way home at the end of the day. After an hour of basically going around in circles, his mother found him. He was frustrated and she was in a bit of a panic. However, instead of having him get in the car, put his bike in the trunk - accept “failure” - she had him follow her home on his bike.
He quickly saw what he had been doing wrong and the “road home” clicked in forever. The next day he rode to and from school without a hitch.
Optimism is learned through the experience of facing difficulties, failing, trying again, failing again, and continuing with effort until success is achieved. We can’t protect children from all the problems of life and we DO NOT WANT TO. A child who learns early on that he or she can overcome a skinned knee, being called “four eyes” for wearing glasses, or is given the opportunity to learn his way home from school without being ridiculed is going to grow up to be an optimistic, self-confident, self-determined, and “hearty” soul.
References
Seligman, Ph.D., Martin, et.al., The Optimistic Child. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.
Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. Rev. ed. New York: Random House, Inc., 2004.
