Greater Good

The last post was about why we parents should foster optimism in our kids. In a nutshell: there is a close link between how optimistically kids think and how healthy and happy they are—and how they perform academically and athletically, for that matter. This post explains a little more about what it means to be optimistic or pessimistic and so that we parents can better foster optimism in our kids.

Martin Seligman has been doing research on optimism for decades, and his book The Optimistic Child is a great resource for parents. According to Seligman and other researchers, how optimistic or pessimistic we are amounts to how we explain life's events, be they good or bad. There are three basic dimensions to an explanation: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. The OPTIMISITIC way of understanding why something GOOD happened would explain:

The cause of what just happened as Permanent (so it will reoccur);
And Pervasive (it will affect many other circumstances, too);
And Personal (I made it happen).

On the other hand, the PESSIMISTIC way of explaining why something GOOD just happened would illustrate that:

The cause of what just happened is Temporary (something short-lived caused it – probably won't happen again);
And Specific (affecting only this situation);
And Impersonal (I didn't have anything to do with what happened, other people or the circumstances did).

The reverse is also true when something bad happens. A kid trips on the sidewalk and skins her knee, dirtying her new dress. The pessimist thinks: "I'm so clumsy – I'm always tripping everywhere, and now I look stupid." The cause of her fall is (1) permanent—she sees it as a personality trait, and therefore it is both (2) pervasive and (3) personal. On the other hand, the optimist thinks: "Dang! Someone oughtta fix that crack in the sidewalk!" She's thinking that a flaw in the sidewalk, not her own inherent clumsiness, caused her to trip. That crack is (1) temporary; (2) specific to that moment; and (3) impersonal—she had nothing to do with it.

Growth mindset, praise, and optimism
This seems to fly in the face of an earlier post about praise, as Rebecca points out in her comment. Praise is important for kids, but it really needs to be growth mindset praise rather than fixed mindset praise. The growth mindset puts the emphasis on EFFORT and hard-work as the key to success—research shows that it makes kids more resilient and persistent in the face of challenges. Fixed mindset praise points to inborn traits as the cause of kids' successes, which seems very optimistic because it is permanent, persistent, and personal. But, as I've written about before, fixed mindset praise ultimately makes kids insecure, causing many kids to avoid taking risks (lest they lose their special label). So the key is to keep our praise both growth mindset AND optimistic: focused on effort (rather than innate ability) as well as personal and pervasive. For example, praising my daughter's artwork I could say, "I can tell you worked really hard on that painting, Fiona – your passion for art really shows!" As Carol Dweck, the woman behind all the mindset research, has explained: "When we praise children for the effort and hard work that leads to achievement, they want to keep engaging in that process. They are not diverted from the task of learning by a concern with how smart they might—or might not—look."

Personally I'm not going to worry too much about being optimistic when I praise my kids—focusing on the growth mindset is good enough. I AM, however, going to watch any pessimistic explanations I may have for misfortune or misbehavior: kids really pick up on this. We can teach our children to be optimistic, but remember, the reverse is also true: we can also teach our children to be pessimistic. For example, say my daughter Molly hits her sister, or says something nasty. A pessimistic reaction to this would be, "Molly, why are you so mean!? You are not going to have any friends at school if you behave that way." Assigning her the character flaw of being mean is permanent, pervasive, and personal. Optimistic reaction: "You sure are having a hard time right now, Molly. I think you might be hungry. Please apologize to your sister, and let's go get you something to eat." This makes the bad behavior temporary and specific to the situation—she'll behave better once she's not hungry. Furthermore, the situation will be over with an apology, and it's nothing personal—it's more about her blood sugar than her personality.

A word about genetics
But aren't some kids just born pessimistic or sunny optimists, as Joy asks in her comment? Of course! But genetics aren't everything; in fact, they probably don't account for more than 25% of why a person tends towards optimism or not (according to studies of identical twins reared apart). We want to be careful before we label a child a born pessimist. Although this is our culture's most frequent explanation for why people are the way they are, assigning a negative personality trait to someone is both fixed-mindset and a pessimistic way of thinking (considering something bad as permanent, pervasive, and personal). Better to focus on teaching our kids the skills they will need to overcome pessimistic tendencies, as well as the skills they'll need to lead joyful lives as adults. If you've got a determined pessimist in your midst, I'd recommend Seligman's book – it's got a whole section on changing a pessimist into an optimist. It also gives lots of good tips and exercises for kids at different ages.

Frankly, I think good ol' Pollyannaishness is missing in all this research on fostering optimism in our kids. (Academics tend to eschew anything reeking of Pollyanna; for that matter, many have real disdain for happiness. Word is still not out that cheerfulness and the ability to see a silver lining does NOT equal stupidity.) The other day I was parked in a crime-riddled part of San Francisco, right next to some unseemly activity involving a different sort of crack on the sidewalk. My friend Brett, a self-proclaimed pessimist, started worrying for me about my car. What if someone smashes the window to break in? "Maybe then I'll finally be able to get a new car," I thought out loud. "Geez, you really are an optimist," Brett said, shaking his head. Yup, I really am. But I wasn't always: I have practiced finding the silver lining in things so often that it now comes to me reflexively. And that is something I hope to pass on to my children.

Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a mother of two and the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Find more tips for raising happy kids at greatergoodparents.org.

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Just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. –Elie Wiesel

Are our children hopeful? Do they expect good in the world? That things will work out for the best? Optimism is so closely related to happiness that the two can practically be equated. And guess what: optimism is a teachable skill. Hope, faith and optimism are all positive emotions about the future, and so are essential parts of a happy childhood. That is enough for me, but if a happy childhood isn't your first priority for your kids, think about these other benefits reaped by optimistic children. Compared to pessimistic people, optimists are:

• More successful in school, at work, and in athletics
• They are healthier and they live longer
• They are more satisfied with their marriages
• They are less likely to suffer from depression
• They are less anxious

Who wouldn't want that list of benefits for themselves or for their kids?? (If you raised your hand, this is the wrong blog for you!) Research points to three ways that kids learn to be either optimistic or pessimistic from their parents.

(1) Parental Affection. Since I am the huggiest person you'll ever meet, I LOVE that parental affection can influence your kids' outlook on life. (My brother thinks my propensity to stand close and touch the people I'm talking with is indicative of what he calls "underdeveloped personal space disorder". I wonder if I'm inadvertently fostering hope in my friends by invading their space.) The researchers who direct the Penn Resiliency Project at the University of Pennsylvania say that kids whose parents are caring and affectionate are more hopeful. Parental affection and care is—no duh—essential for kids to develop trust in the world. When kids have a secure base in their parents, they tend to believe that the world is a good place. In addition to fostering optimism, this allows them to take risks and explore—another way they learn to be optimistic.




(2) By having the opportunity to take risks and fail. The ability to cope with challenge and frustration—even failure—is also critical for the development of optimism. Research shows that kids who are protected from failure and adversity are less likely to develop optimism. Why? When kids make mistakes and learn from them they also learn that they can overcome the challenges that likely lie ahead. This makes them feel hopeful about the future. However: repeated failures lead to learned helplessness, not optimism, so it is really important that the challenges children face are developmentally appropriate. Too much challenge can overwhelm children, making them anxious and insecure.

(3) Modeling. Pessimistic parents are more likely to have pessimistic children. Being an optimist means having a particular way of explaining events, like "explaining good events in terms of permanent causes," says Martin Seligman, who has studied optimism for more than two decades.

[Optimists] point to traits and abilities that they will always have, like being hard-working, likable, or lovable. They use "always" when they describe the causes of good events. Pessimists think in terms of transient causes. "I was in a good mood," or "I practiced hard this time." Their explanations of good events are qualified with the words, "sometimes" and "today," and they often use the past tense and limit it to time only ("I practiced hard this time.") When children who believe their successes have permanent causes do well, they will try even harder next time. Children who see temporary reasons for good events may give up even when they succeed, believing the success was a fluke.

More than modeling how you interpret events in our own lives, kids model how you interpret events in their lives. In other words, kids are more sensitive to the feedback they get from their parents ("you are so lazy" or "that won't work") than they are to their parents' explanations about their own life events. This means that when we criticize our children we make them more vulnerable to pessimism. This adds a new dimension to thinking about how we praise kids. In coming weeks, we'll learn more about what optimism really is and how best to teach it to our kids.

Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a mother of two and the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Find more tips for raising happy kids at greatergoodparents.org.

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This posting is about how to make chow-time a powerful ritual for kids—and how doing so will make them happier people.

At least in my family, dinnertime is really our only daily family ritual. Rituals are any kind of routine that has symbolic or expressive meaning. They are important because they illustrate our values—kids know intuitively that we celebrate or ritualize the things we believe are most important. There are two reasons dinnertime can be important for your kids' well-being:

1: It makes them feel that they are a part of something larger than themselves (that would be your family). As I've said before, 50 years of happiness research has consistently told us that human happiness is all about meaningful social connections. Kids need to feel a part of their family on a daily basis, and dinnertime is a terrific way to accomplish this.

Running out of things to talk about? Start telling your kids some family history. Research shows that telling stories about your shared past creates strong and secure emotional bonds, which directly impacts how well families are functioning. Turns out this study also found that kids who knew a lot about their family history learned it at dinnertime.

I also try to think about what the way we get dinner on the table says symbolically about our family. We sit together at the table to literally create a family circle. And we try to get dinner on the table as a team. We try to cook as a team, even if it just means having Molly press start on the microwave and Fiona wash the lettuce. (Even if it takes longer, involves nagging someone to set the table, and everyone is starving and cranky.) We try clean up together, too, though again it is often tempting to let the kids leave the table while the adults hang around and talk. The idea is to show our children that this is the way that we care for each other on a daily basis.

Sometimes it definitely is easier to do the mom-as-waiter/personal chef routine. But when we wait on our children the symbolic meaning is that they are passive actors who are entitled to our service—rather than lucky and active participants in a larger whole.

2: Dinnertime can habitually evoke positive emotions for everyone at the table. The easiest way to do this is to say grace. If you aren't especially religious, make it a general blessing or a toast—invent your own family tradition. In terms of this conversation, it's not important that it be about God. A blessing is an incredible opportunity to habitually cultivate positive emotions. Think about it:

1) Usually you are expressing some sort of gratitude or appreciation for the food (my kids often spontaneously give thanks for bigger things – like "being in this world"). Gratitude is a positive emotion about the past.

2) A blessing (or a toast or whatever) can at the same time be a moment of contentment—joy that comes from hearing a little girl give thanks, gladness that comes from all being together. Contentment, joy, gladness: these are positive emotions about the present.

3) Saying grace can also be an act of faith, which is a form of optimism and positive emotion about the future.

4) Joining hands around a table is an act of love. It says I care enough about you enough to share this meal with you. Love is a positive emotion about others.

If a happy life is defined as one that is full of positive emotions, a blessing at dinnertime is a powerful tool for cultivating happiness.

I am often asked if there are other things a family can do instead of have dinner together that will work in the same way – Sunday Parcheesi night or something. But think about all those positive emotions that go with grace – perhaps a nighttime family prayer could work in a similar way, but reading probably wouldn't. And think about all the modeled behaviors we talked about last week. What else could you do that teaches good nutrition and social skills? Plus teaches about family history and establishes a strong sense of belonging? Perhaps storytelling in a circle, as a family. At breakfast.


I fear I'm really pouring on the pressure to have dinner together, and to do it well. I know how darn difficult this can be. Last night I sat at the table with my two daughters eating a Trader Joe's frozen delite thinking: this doesn't feel symbolically meaningful. No one wanted to tell me about their day. I don't think anyone learned any new words. Grace happened, but everyone was curiously thankful for the same things that they were thankful for the night before. There was a lot of complaining about the food and getting out of chairs. But then when I was putting the kids to bed, Fiona told me that dinnertime was one of the three best things about her day. Go figure.

Really, the fact that getting a family mealtime together is so difficult is a big social problem, not an individual one. Our households have shrunk down so much that what used to be a community affair of people working together to get food on the table is know usually the mother's problem. Broad economic forces mean that many people are now at work when a generation ago they would have been eating dinner at home. And countering these forces is hard.

I keep saying that what I really should do is to combine forces with some other families – I live in a neighborhood dense with people I'd love to have dinner with regularly. So long as the adults and children eat together—rather than segregating them at a kids' table as our family is prone to do—we should all reap the benefits of family dinnertime. Friends, please consider this an open invitation to come to my house for dinner.

How do you manage family mealtimes at your house? Lots of people have been sending me emails with comments about these postings. I love to hear from you, and I'd love it even more if you'd post your comments for everyone else's benefit. What other powerful family rituals do you have?

Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a mother of two and the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Find more tips for raising happy kids at greatergoodparents.org.

Last week's video and posting take a look at the benefits of dinnertime and what it is we should model during dinner.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

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