Sports have a lot to teach us about many things—including the best way to offer praise. Speaking on NPR, L. Jon Wertheim, executive editor of Sports Illustrated, and Tufts psychologist Sam Sommers, the authors of This is Your Brain On Sports, weighed in on the subject.

Both authors happen to coach their kids’ sports teams, and both are opposed to the “everyone gets a participation trophy” style of recognition. Citing a study in which University of Notre Dame researchers tested praise's efficacy on a losing college hockey team, Wertheim and Sommers contend that the more specific praise is, the greater its impact.  “Praise the hustle, the effort, the process,” they advise, and avoid generic praise like “good job” or “you’re smart.” (The hockey team, whose players were specifically complimented on the number of times they checked an opponent, made it into the playoffs).

Whether dealing with children, or adults on organizational teams, the lesson applies universally. Be specific in your praise, compliment the level of effort, and notice the details of achievement. The results breed far more self-confidence than a generic “good job participation trophy”—and praiseworthy efforts are likely to continue.
 
We want to hear: What’s a piece of memorable praise that you’ve received? What’s an example of high impact praise that you’ve given? To join the conversation, click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.
 
If you would like to read more about creating a habit around masterful communication, check out our book: Be Quiet, Be Heard: The Paradox of Persuasion.

New studies demonstrate that multilingual exposure improves not only children’s cognitive skills but also their social abilities.

One study, from the Cornell developmental psychology lab of Professor Katherine Kinzler, presented 4 to 6-year-olds from different linguistic backgrounds with a situation in which they had to consider someone else’s perspective to understand their meaning. For example, an adult said to the child: “Ooh, a small car! Can you move the small car for me?” Children could see three cars — small, medium and large — but were in position to observe that the adult could not see the smallest car. Since the adult could see only the medium and large cars, when the adult said “small” car, she must be referring to the child’s “medium.” Bilingual children were better than monolinguals at moving the car the adult meant.

This pattern was repeated in a follow up study of 14 to 16-month-olds who were shown two bananas, one of which was visible to both the infant and an adult, the other visible to the baby yet hidden from the adult’s view. When the adult asked the baby for “the banana” bilinguals would reach most often for the banana the adult could see.

“If you think about it,” writes Kinzler, “this makes intuitive sense. Interpreting someone’s utterance often requires attending not just to its content, but also to the surrounding context. What does a speaker know or not know? What did she intend to convey? Children in multilingual environments have social experiences that provide routine practice in considering the perspectives of others.”

We want to hear:  Are you bilingual, or do you know someone who is? Do you agree that speaking in more than one language hones the ability to consider other points of view—and can you give an example? To join the conversation, click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.
 
If you would like to read more about creating a habit around masterful communication, check out our book: Be Quiet, Be Heard: The Paradox of Persuasion.

With back-to-school excitement in the air, many parents are probably wondering how they can help their kids have a good year at school. The answer involves going back to basics. While there are many styles of parenting, one thing that consistently helps children is simply this: conversation.

Yes, just talking to your kids will help them emotionally, socially, and intellectually. And there appears to be a direct correlation between conversation length and reading ability. Speak often, speak wisely, and speak well:  Because 88 to 98 percent of the words children use by age 3 are from their parents’ vocabularies! (Hart and Riley, 2003)

Can’t think of what to chat about? Read the kids a book! Studies also show that kids whose parents read to them at least 20 minutes a day are at least a grade level above others in reading by the time they are 15 years old.(PISA 2009 Assessment)

We want to hear: What do you like to talk about with the children in your life? What tips do you have for keeping conversations with kids afloat? To join the conversation, click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.

Does a young person in your life have a “mindless” summer job right now? Harvard professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, writing in The New York Times, reminisced about the “so-called stupid jobs” she had as a teenager and young adult – including selling hot dogs and mowing lawns, working as an office temp and messenger, and hawking T-shirts at Grateful Dead concerts.  “These jobs,” she wrote, “made me aware of class privilege in a way that my hours in Econ 101 surely did not.”

We agree that gaining some understanding of many different social realities can be one benefit of students’ summer jobs, but there are many more. Unless you are a lighthouse keeper, virtually every job entails communication skills, and many present opportunities for teamwork and collaboration. Learning to deal with a cross-section of customers and a spectrum of management styles, whether working at a retail store, in a restaurant, or on a construction crew, can provide invaluable experience for later positions.

In the theater, there is a saying: “There are no small parts.”  Likewise, there are no small jobs. Taking pride in every job we do, staying engaged in the work, navigating conflict if it arises—even making and recovering from rookie mistakes—all prepare young people for the challenges ahead.

We want to hear: What valuable lessons did you learn from a summer job? To join the conversation, click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.

Want to motivate your kids to help out? Try defining them as “helpers.” So says a new study in the journal Child Development. Experimenters divided 100 preschoolers into two groups. Half got a talk about helping; the others heard about being helpers. While the children were playing, those who got the talk about being helpers dropped their toys to help 20 percent more often.

The difference is nuanced, but important. When you want to reinforce a moral trait (like being a “helper” or “giver”) use nouns—not verbs! Being called a helper makes kids feel they're embodying a virtue, says Christopher Bryan, one of the psychologists behind the study. Conversely, if you want to reinforce skill-based behavior it’s best to focus on specific detailed actions and effort. (As we mentioned in a previous Communication Capsule, rather than offering vague “Good job” kudos to kids, we reinforce their hard work and the specific activities that helped them achieve success: "Wow, how did you do that? Could you show me how to do that?")

By the way, the moral motivation phenomenon isn't unique to kids. In a previous study, Bryan found that asking grown-ups, "How important is it to you to be a voter?" was more likely to get them to the polls than asking them about the importance of voting.

We want to hear! What happens when you motivate kids, or adults, by using virtue-based nouns? Join the conversation and click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.

Parents from virtually all backgrounds place high importance on raising caring children. So what kind of messaging is most effective when it comes to influencing our children to be generous and kind? Role modeling!

In a classic experiment, psychologist J. Philippe Rushton gave 140 elementary and middle school children tokens for winning a game, which they could keep or donate to an impoverished child. They first watched a teacher play—and regardless of what the teacher said, or did not say, about the virtues of generosity, children donated significantly more than the norm when they saw the teacher behaving unselfishly.

Adam Grant, a professor of management and psychology at the Wharton School and author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, notes, “If you don’t model generosity, preaching it may not help in the short run, and in the long run, preaching is less effective than giving while saying nothing at all.” In short, when it comes to passing on our values, actions speak louder than words.

We want to hear: How do you encourage your children to be compassionate and giving?  Join the conversation by clicking "comments" below.

Ignoring your kids in favor of your cell phone? Research shows what your gut may already tell you: it hurts their feelings.  In researching her book The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age, psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair interviewed 1,000 children between the ages of 4 and 18,about their parents' use of mobile devices. The language that came up over and over and over again was "sad, mad, angry and lonely." Some gleefully told how they tossed a parent's phone into the toilet or hid it in the oven.

If you’d like to preserve your cell phone—and, oh yes, your family relationships—we recommend setting an intention to pay attention to your kids when you’re together. We agree with Steiner-Adair when she says, "We are behaving in ways that certainly tell children they don't matter, they're not interesting to us, they're not as compelling as anybody, anything, any ping that may interrupt our time with them.” Small wonder that children (and spouses and friends and colleagues…) may act out more to get a crumb of our attention.

We want to hear: Have you experienced “disconnects” because you’re preoccupied with technology? Are you doing anything to modify your behavior? Share your responses to the weekly discussion question here.

 UCLA psychology professor Jim Stigler studies teaching and learning around the world. As a grad student he conducted a study comparing Japanese and American kids presented with an impossible math problem.  American students gave up after 30 seconds; their Japanese counterparts persevered until researchers stopped them. The difference: Are we teaching our students that struggle is a predictable part of learning and a chance to demonstrate that they have what it takes to persevere?  Or do we communicate that struggle is a sign they are just not smart enough? 

Should we praise a child for being smart, or for working hard?  Marion Forgatch and Gerry Patterson, leading authorities on parenting practices, suggest that rather than offering blanket “Good job!” kudos to kids, we reinforce their hard work by asking "Wow, how did you do that? Could you show me how to do that?"

By focusing on specific detailed actions and effort, we help children discover for themselves what the steps were that brought their success.  As we do this we also instill resilience, and perseverance—the essence of grit—in the next generation.

We want to hear:  How do you praise the kids in your life and how have they responded?  Share your stories here.

As grandparents now for almost four years, we have started to look more closely at the impact of adult communication on children.  Researcher Angela Duckworth, a MacArthur Genius Award recipient who operates the Duckworth Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, caught our attention in her identification of teaching "grit" as a key to laying the groundwork for success. 

Grit means a growth mindset where failing is never seen as a permanent condition; where setbacks do not lead to disappointment, and where pushing yourself farther than you thought possible is a life pattern that leads to finishing what we begin.  So, it's not about telling our children that they are "smart" or "good at" certain things.  Instead, notice their effort and acknowledge the small steps they take that add up to any specific accomplishment.

BTW, if you are interested in determining your own grit score, click here: “Get Your Grit Score.”

Please share your thoughts:  Do you have suggestions for getting your children to persevere toward long term goals, even when they face setbacks?  Share your responses here.