Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First

I’m always struck by our willingness as mothers to take care of our children—and often their fathers and a host of others around us—before we take care of ourselves. Right around now, at the end of the school year, I start really noticing it a lot. Moms at my kids’ school have just finished planning and executing the Spring fundraiser, and are now gearing up for teacher appreciation day. They are writing letters to address two measures on the June ballot related to school funding, and planning end-of-the-school-year parties. They are tired.

Calling run-down moms everywhere: this Mother’s Day, let’s all take the advice of the airlines and put on our own oxygen masks first before helping those around us. I’m not saying don’t help those around you, but rather that should you become faint from lack of oxygen, you won’t be much good to anyone at all. Speaking for myself, I’ve found that a certain core of peace and centeredness is necessary before I can really get engaged in raising happy, compassionate, and altruistic children. Here’s why:

1. If we get depressed, it may affect our children adversely. An extensive body of research has established a substantial link between depressed mothers and “negative outcomes” in their children, like acting out and other behavior problems. Parental depression actually seems to cause behavior problems in kids: it bothers kids to see their parents upset and unhappy, and they express this by behaving badly. Depressed parents also demonstrate poorer parenting skills, and so are less likely to correct bad behavior in constructive ways. Depressed mothers tend to be less sensitive and proactive in responding to their children’s needs, and are less likely to play with their children in emotionally positive ways. Kids with chronically depressed mothers—mothers whose feelings of sadness and despair persist—perform more poorly on school readiness tests, use less expressive language, and have poorer social skills. And it isn’t just depression: anxiety in mothers (something I’m prone to) is associated with increased anxiety in children.
2. The reverse is also true: when I do what it takes to be happy myself, my children reap the benefits. Kids mimic their parents, especially when they are younger. Children imitate their parents’ emotions as early as 6 days old; it is one of the primary ways that they learn and grow. So if we model happiness—and all the skills that go with it—our kids are likely to behave in the same way. If I model a key happiness habit like kindness and generosity, for example, my daughters are more likely to become kind and generous.

   And because research shows that people’s emotions tend to converge—we become more similar emotionally the more we are together—it follows that the happier I am, the happier my children will be. Dacher Keltner and his colleagues ran an interesting series of experiments that show that people in close relationships become more similar to each other over time. The studies showed that the emotions and emotional reactions of friends and lovers actually become more alike over the course of a year (Anderson, Keltner & John, 2003). Another study, attempting to determine the degree to which shared genetics dictate similar emotional outlooks in parents and children, came up short: while they did find that happy parents are statistically more likely to have happy children, they couldn’t find a genetic component. Like roommates and lovers, the emotions of children and parents can be very similar, but not because they are cut from the same cloth, so to speak.

3. Emotions in general are just plain contagious. A political scientist from the University of California, San Diego and a Harvard sociologist have recently documented that happiness is particularly contagious. Their conclusion, which is based on an analysis of people’s social connections over 20 years, is that our happiness depends on the happiness of those around us. Having happy friends, neighbors, and siblings that live in close proximity to you increases your odds of being happy—the positive emotions of one community member clearly spread to others (Fowler & Christakis, 2008).

So it turns out that the first step in the science of raising happy kids is to actually be happy yourself. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there who do so much for everyone else all year: may Mother’s Day be dedicated not just to all you do and all you are, but also to your own happiness!

*THANK YOU* for all of your comments (and photos) lately! I’m going to start doing a comment round-up each week so that people can see the interesting discussions that are happening all over the blog, and so that I can do a better job in answering your questions.

This week: tell us what YOU do to put your own oxygen mask on first. What makes you happy? Do your kids seem happier when you are happy?

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Make your kids famous

Well, at least famous within the Half Full Blogosphere.

I’m quickly running out of photos of my own, and would LOVE to include pictures of Half Full readers’ kids in my posts. I’m looking for images of happy, laughing, or otherwise emoting kids — or kids involved in activities like arts and crafts, sports, or any type of play.

Any format will do — email photos of your kids to ggsc@berkeley.edu — and see their lovely faces light up my posts.

How to get kids to do boring (but necessary) tasks

Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear. —H.A. Dorfman

After much background material about why I was using material rewards before (habit + compelling neuroscientific theory) and why I’ve changed my thinking (much more well-established research about the perils of rewards in the long-run), here is my first suggestion for what to replace rewards with. More to come, but this specific kind of encouragement has been revolutionary in my household. I had to make up a mnemonic device for myself so that I could remember all 3 components at first, but I’m happy to report that this science-tested encouragement is now rolling off my tongue almost as easily as “If you brush your teeth now, I’ll give you an extra star on your chart for being so speedy!”

Psychologists have tested a specific kind of encouragement and found that it is the best way to motivate kids over the long run—far better than offering them a piece of candy. Here is how to support your kids’ self-motivation when you’re asking them to do tedious (but necessary) tasks.

1. Show empathy before you finish making your request. This step was life-changing—okay, maybe just habit-changing—for my family. One night I wanted Molly to go brush her teeth, and I’d asked her a thousand times already. Then I thought: oh yah, express empathy. I said, “Molly, I know you don’t really want to, but you need to go brush your teeth right now.” When there was no response I realized that I didn’t know why she was resisting, so I couldn’t really empathize. I simply asked her: “Molly, why don’t you want to go brush your teeth?” Her response was that she didn’t want to go downstairs by herself (there were no lights on, and it had gotten dark), and that she wanted to be with me. So I said: “I can understand why you don’t want to go downstairs in the dark, and I want to be with you, too. But I need you to go brush your teeth.” To which she replied: “If you understand, why don’t you just come with me?” I did NOT reply that I was trying to save all of about 2 minutes by having her brush her teeth alone while I did something else—I just went with her. And she brushed her teeth gleefully. Seriously.
2. Offer meaningful rationales. Why are you asking your kids to do that seemingly unimportant task? I am getting into the habit of offering positive rationales like: “Please go brush your teeth so they feel clean and healthy today.” This is much more motivating to them than some version of “Please do it because I’ve asked you to do it 200 times.”
3. Imply that they have a choice rather than of using “controlling language.” Shocking but true: my bossiness does not motivate my kids. It IS a lot easier to just tell my kids what I need them to do, as in: “Please empty the dishwasher. Now.” Less controlling language would be “What I propose is…” or “If you choose to,” or “It would be extremely helpful if you…” At first I thought, well, that isn’t going to work—my kids will definitely reject the task if given a choice like this. But then I realized I had nothing to lose: they were already rejecting the tasks, repeatedly. Most kids know that they are eventually going to end up doing most of what we ask them to do—it isn’t really an option not to brush their teeth or not do their homework. When we avoid using directives and controlling language, (”You should do…” or “What you have to do now…”) they have a lot less to resist, and thus offer a lot less resistance.

Here is the great thing: research shows that when we encourage kids to do a blindingly boring task with empathy, rationale, and non-controlling language, they feel happier when they are performing the task than they would if we’d offered them a material reward. That happiness they feel IS the reward. Moreover, these kids tend to be no less likely to perform the task than those who were offered material rewards instead. And kids motivated with empathy, rationale, and choice learn that just because something is boring and unfun doesn’t mean that it isn’t important.

Here’s how I remembered what to do in the heat of the moment with my kids: The 3 steps are ERN (Empathy, Rationale, Non-controlling language). Before I was motivating them to EARN a reward; now I motivate them with ERN encouragement. If you can think of something better, please post it in the comments or send me an email!

Here is how I would summarize the last three postings: Rewards work in the short-term because they provide us with a nice feel-good Dopamine hit. But unfortunately, rewards tend to have a negative effect on kids’ motivation over the long-term. The answer is to motivate kids to do those not-so-fun things that are necessary in life with the particular kind of encouragement described above. That way, their brains deliver those feel-good chemicals in response to their feelings of mastery and autonomy (intrinsic motivation) rather than in response to receiving a material reward (extrinsic motivation).

Up next week: a new habit tracking chart, and more on helping kids break bad habits and replace them with good ones. Until then, please post your suggestions and feedback about the ERN method!

Key Reference: Joussemet, M., Koestner, R., Lekes, N., Houlfort, N. (2004). Introducing Uninteresting Tasks to Children: A Comparison of the Effects of Rewards and Autonomy Support. Journal of Personality, 72(1), 139-66.

For more references, click here.

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Punished by Rewards?

Like most parents, I used to (okay, I sometimes still do) bribe my children. Constantly. As in: “I will give the first kid to have her room clean a whole sheet of new stickers.”

Life is full of undesirable but important tasks; most of us don’t feel a fire in our soul to put the laundry away, but we do it anyway, and as Heather commented last week, no one gives us a piece of candy for doing it. How do we teach our kids to do what we need them to do without bribing them?

You may have read the series I posted about forming good habits last year, which I’ve taken down and revised into this series of postings. Last year’s advice about getting kids to do the boring stuff that they have to do, based on the neuroscience of reward systems was based on rewarding kids with things like stickers and gum. For the record, the program I put together was not at all easy, as suggested by this reader in response to my old series:

Good grief! Negotiating toys and sweets for behaviours!?? This is truly awful and lazy parenting. I couldn’t disagree with you more…Dangling carrots is treating your children like mindless donkeys.

I don’t think that any parent who is trying to help their kids get into good habits is awful and lazy; we parents dangle carrots because it works, not because we see them as unintelligent.

Social scientists have studied motivation in kids a lot. There are two types: researchers call self-motivation “intrinsic” drive—the desire to do something purely because of the pleasure we derive from the activity itself. On the other hand, we also do things for “extrinsic” reasons—not for the process or the activity, but for the outcome or reward. Kids often do their homework for the grade or the approval of their teacher, for example, rather than for the fun of learning something new.

Intrinsic motivation makes for greater happiness and success, particularly when it comes to academic life. Self-motivated kids achieve more, perceive themselves to be more competent, and are less anxious. Extrinsically motivated kids are more prone to depression. While intrinsic motivation is a particular form of joy, extrinsic motivation can lead to a particular form of unhappiness fueled by fear of failure or disappointment. Sadly, because girls tend to be more attuned to their external appearance and environment, research shows they tend to be more extrinsically motivated and thus are more likely to be depressed.

And despite their often dramatic short-term effect—the kid who leaps off the couch to walk the dog when ice cream is offered upon his return—rewards can actually have a detrimental effect over the medium and long-term. Although rewards get kids to comply with externally imposed requests and rules, ultimately we want kids to become self-motivated without our external goading. Orienting kids towards external rewards can cause them to lose touch with their own feelings and their own intrinsic motivation. A wide body of research shows that when kids find an activity or task that they inherently like doing—such as reading or helping another kid—and then an adult comes along and starts offering rewards for doing that activity, the external rewards have an undermining effect, making them like doing the activity less. They also decrease the likelihood that they will engage in the activity again when given the choice. (This negative impact of rewards is stronger with children than with adults, by the way.)

It makes sense not to reward kids for things that they already like doing. But what about when the task is not something kids want to do for the sheer joy of it? Next week I’ll give you a simple step-by-step plan!

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Unhappiness is a Bad Habit

The other day when I wasn’t giving Molly exactly what she wanted exactly when she wanted it, she yelled at me “If I can’t have a playdate with Claire right now, then I am never going to hug you again!”

Made me realize I am really in a bad habit of bribing and threatening the kids to get them to do what I want. “If you brush your teeth right now, then we’ll have time for an extra story!” or “If you don’t get in the car right now, then we aren’t going to listen to High School Musical.” Clearly these “If, Then” statements were coming so fast and furiously from me that now my 6-year-old was using them, too.

Coincidentally, I’ve also been reviewing the research on rewarding kids, and it is really making me rethink the series of postings I had on forming happiness habits; my method most definitely involved using rewards to goad kids into getting into good habits. Rewards work in the short-term, but research shows that they back-fire in the long run. So I’m revising and reposting the happiness habits articles.

The core premise of this blog is that happiness is a skill set that parents can teach to their kids. If we want to be happy, and if we want our children to be happy, we have to learn how to turn the skills presented in this blog, and the positive skills we already have, into automatic habits. But like most parents, I’ve also been teaching my kids habits that foster negative emotions rather than positive ones. For example, both of my kids have been in the annoying habit of waiting until the 10th time I’d asked them to do something before they did it. This was a frustration-fostering habit on my end, and because I often threw in a few random threats for added motivation, a fear-fostering habit on their end.

Most of us have some routines with our children that just aren’t working but that we continue to replay day in and day out anyway. My friend R.’s nightly homework battle with her 8th grader leaves her depleted and frustrated and her son distant and grouchy. These bad habits make us unhappy. How do we break such frustration-fostering habits? How do we instill happiness habits in their place?

One big key to happiness is making the everyday unfun things in life into automatic routines, so that we don’t have to fight the urge not to do them day in and day out.

For that, parents and teachers often use rewards. Good, juicy, rewarding rewards.

When we engage in certain activities (such as eating and, for adults, having sex and taking certain drugs), dopamine is released, creating feelings of enjoyment and an accompanied desire to repeat the activity. Researchers believe that when we reward kids, we stimulate the release of this feel-good brain chemical, and when a reward is consistently associated with a behavior, this dopamine-release helps make the behavior an into a habit. Animals, insects, kids, grown-ups: we all learn to repeat
behaviors that lead to really good rewards.

The great thing about dopamine is that it is all about the motivation and not so much about the activity. So my kids don’t actually have to enjoy emptying the dishwasher, they just need to feel rewarded for doing it.

But all this neuroscience aside, rewarding children is controversial in the scientific community. Most researchers agree that it isn’t a great way to motivate behavior over the long run. The same goes for my habit of punishing kids and threatening them with “consequences”. (As in: “Do that again and there will be no computer games for a week.”)

But you have no idea how many parents wrote to me thanking me for giving them permission to use rewards; in theory no-rewards no-punishment parenting sounds good (if you’ve read anything by Alphie Kohn), but it doesn’t come naturally to most of us.

I think I’ve found a better way: one that works in the short-term and doesn’t backfire in the long run. The next several postings will be about how to help kids successfully break bad habits and replace them with good ones without using material rewards. Stay tuned!

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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