Raising Cheaters
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Cheating, Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Success, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Last week I visited a high school that has a really spectacular Honor Code. There are no locks on the doors, and all the exams are unproctored. For more than 100 years, kids at this school haven’t cheated. But ...
Fake It Till You Make It
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 Posted in Getting the ratios right, Main essay, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Should you ever just pretend to be happy when you’re not? All this talk about getting our ratio of positive to negative emotions up prompted that question—and the answer is more complex than you might think. Feigning happiness doesn’t count ...
How to Criticize Your Kids
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 Posted in Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 5 Comments »I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about how we should praise our kids, but someone asked me the other day if there is a correct way to criticize them. Good question. Here are some ideas, a ...
7 Ways to Foster Creativity in Your Kids
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Play & creativity, School & scheduling, Success, Success & failure | 4 Comments »Many people assume that creativity is an inborn talent that their kids either do or do not have: just as all children are not equally intelligent, all children are not equally creative. But actually, creativity is more skill than ...
How to Stop Being a Perfectionist
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 4 Comments »If you’ve been reading this series on perfection being a total drag on happiness, and you keep thinking to yourself, crap, I’ve created a perfectionist, and now you’re worried that your daughter is going to end up depressed and stifled ...
How To Make Your Kid into a Perfectionist
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 1 Comment »In my last post, I made the case for preventing perfectionism in children, and got a slew of emails from people asking how to prevent perfectionism. Kids today, especially upper-middle class kids, are under a lot of pressure to ...
Perfectionism is a Disease
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 7 Comments »Although in my last post I heartily extolled the importance of hard work, I'd like to clarify that I'm not advocating that you push your children to become perfectionists. Perfectionism is not a happiness habit. Maybe it isn't ...
The Science of Success
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 Posted in Kindness, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Psychologists have established a solid link between happiness and success. Happier people earn more money, perform better, and are more helpful to their coworkers. Most people assume that this link exists because people feel happy when they are ...
Let Your Kids Fail
Friday, November 2nd, 2007 Posted in Success, Success & failure, Video | 4 Comments »Sometimes the best thing to do is to let your kids fail a little. There are four ways to view this 3 minute video: 1) Default: Play using Windows Media Player. 2) Mac Users: Play using QuickTime player. 3) Fastest download: YouTube. ...
This blog is about science-based parenting advice. I'm a sociologist and the executive director of UC Berkeley's 
Appearances on ABC's "View From the Bay."
