Greater Good

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
—Meister Eckhart

This post continues the last three postings about what it takes to help kids successfully break bad habits and replace them with good ones. Go here for:

Part I: Happiness on Auto-Pilot
Part II: The Rewards Controversy
Part III: Motivating the Elephant

Stages of Change

Research shows that people who successfully create a new, healthy habit as a part of their New Year's resolution—or who kick a difficult habit like smoking—change happens in stages. James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente have been observing and describing the various stages of change for decades, and what they've learned is that if you start trying to impose change when you or your kids are in the wrong stage, the new habit won't stick.

Research suggests that breaking an old habit (like quitting whining) and successfully beginning a new one in its place (using your normal voice to ask for what you want) usually takes longer than we thought—about three to six months rather than the 21 days that seems to be in popular parlance. Although it felt like it would take forever, it was worth the effort.

In my case, I really had my work cut out for me: I was trying to break our impressively consistent pattern of begging (me), not-listening (the kids), threatening (me), finally doing it, but possibly in tears (kids). In the end, we established a great happiness habit: for routine household tasks (getting dressed, setting the table, brushing teeth, getting in the car), I pretend to be a talking clock (as in: "we need to be in the car in 5 minutes"). And the kids actually listen and (usually) comply. It would be the understatement of the century to say that this was not what went on in my house before we began this work.

1. Stage One: Pre-Contemplation
   This is the stage where no one is thinking about changing, and for my kids, it ended one bright morning in January. At breakfast I said, "Mommy is tired of having to beg you people to do anything before you actually do it." I then proceeded with the autonomy-supporting encouragement: voicing empathy for their sloth-like positioning, rationale for my requests (exhaustion), and the choices we all had before us.
2. Stage Two: Contemplation
   Then, we talked about why I want us all to change and asked them to contemplate why they might want to change, too. The discussion of how we would celebrate loomed large; a party at the local pool with all their friends was reason enough. Molly added that she was a "really good listener" now that she was five, and seemed eager to prove it to me.
3. Stage Three: Preparation
   This stage is actually a transition from thinking about changing to actually beginning the new habit.

   I had to really plan—reorganize my whole morning routine, in fact—just to think about how to support their behavior change. It doesn't seem like offering empathy, rationale, and choice is that hard—and it isn't—but it was so different than what I was doing that I had to really think about what was triggering my use of very, uh, controlling, language. I knew that if I didn't leave enough time, I would start saying things like, "Molly, put on your shoes now," rather than: "I know you'd rather read that book—I would too! But I propose that you finish getting ready for school now. What else do you need to do? If you finish getting ready now, we won't be late, Mommy won't get upset, and you'll get to choose which shoes to wear!" I also knew that Molly would be very resistant to doing something without me close by if I hadn't spent any time with her yet. So I had to plan to be ready for work myself earlier so that I could hang out and eat breakfast with the kids before I expected them to get a move on.

   Each little positive change would win the kids a dose of growth-mindset praise. Chapter 2 goes into what exactly growth-mindset praise is, and why it is so motivating for kids. But generally speaking, growth-mindset praise is specific and oriented towards their effort—the factor that was in their control: "Nice work getting ready for school without me even having to ask!! I can tell you were really focused this morning. I appreciate your effort." Positive behaviors also win them independence; if they get dressed the first time I ask, for example, they get to pick out their own clothes (rather than having to go with the adorable but scratchy jumpers I would pick).

   Another key part of preparation is what I think of as a sort of placebo effect: if you think it will work, it will. To any optimistic reader of The Secret, this is a no-brainer. Just believing that you are capable of changing your bad habits into good ones predicts success, according to research on people who successfully maintain their New Year's resolutions. So do whatever you can do to help your kids believe they are capable of making the change. And you can also use an old sales trick: asking "intent questions."

   Corporate researchers know that just answering a question about what you intend to do (or buy) makes you automatically more likely to do whatever you said in your answer. If you've been seeing a lot of green Toyota Priuses around, which you like, and someone asks you what car you are going to buy next, you're likely to say a green Toyota Prius. And then you'll be more likely to actually go out and buy a green Toyota Prius than you would be if no one had asked you in the first place.

   How this translates for us: we need to ask our kids intent questions. What are you going to do tomorrow after I ask you to get dressed? What are you going to get after you do it?

4. Stage Four: Action
   Going cold-turkey on bad habits like whining and begging is unrealistic, so divide your grand end-goal into lots of smaller ones. The important thing is that at each step you and your kids succeed. This means breaking your big goal into an action-plan made up of tiny turtle steps that eventually get you there. In life, I am more of a hare than a turtle, so this one was really hard for me. However, I frequently find success by taking direction and encouragement from another sociology Ph.D. and science translator, Martha Beck.

   The key, according to Beck, is at each step of the way to "play halvsies until your goal is ridiculously easy to attain." I started with one aspect of our morning routine, getting dressed, so the goal was to make one request for the kids to get dressed in the morning before they did it. This was not yet ridiculously easy, so to make it easier, the first goal was that the kids get dressed within 10 minutes of me asking them. I wanted them to do this without reminding on my part, but again, that didn't seem quite so simple either. So, playing halvsies again, my plan was to make the one request, and their first behavior change was for them to look up at me and say, "okay mom," and then head towards their room to get dressed.

   I then helped them get dressed, doing whatever necessary to make it happen. I pledged NOT to go put my mascara on right after making the request, or to make the request and then maybe mention something about Santa Claus watching them before I got in the shower. My plan was to say "time to get dressed!" and then tail them until it was done. This required considerable effort on my part.

The Plan, 3 or 4 days at a time

As important as picking small, achievable goals is clearly keeping track of successes. I created a handy worksheet for this that you can print out and hang on your fridge.

At first this all seemed a bit labor intensive for me, but I got through it by reminding myself that ultimately it would take a lot less energy than asking Molly four-thousand times to put her shoes on and then consoling her when she started to cry because I yelled at her.

The science points to a few other things that lead to successful habit formation; I suggest you leave nothing to chance and try them all.

• Stimulus Removal
  Another way to up the odds of success is to remove distractions and temptations. People trying to quit smoking cannot leave cigarettes lying around to taunt them. If I want Molly to get dressed without having to beg, at first I needed to make sure our cat wasn't in the room, or she'd pet the cat instead of getting dressed. The same thing went for me: when I decided that a first "turtle step" for me was to support my kids while they established a new habit, I couldn't also be texting dating advice to my brother, even though that was more fun and interesting than fetching socks for Molly.
• Making it Public
  People who have social support for their new habits make more lasting changes—friends who help each other keep exercising, for example. Just making a goal public can increase social support—and pressure—to succeed, which is one reason why New Year's resolutions can be effective. Other people are important for making changes across settings, so be sure to involve your children's other caregivers if they have them.

• Pick Only One Goal—And Make it Specific
  When I first got my kids on this plan, I was eager to eliminate every annoying thing that they do—the possibilities really seemed limitless. But we really can't change more than one bad habit at a time, and neither can our kids. Research shows that the more New Year's Resolutions we make, the less likely we are to keep them. So have them come up with one big goal, and make it really specific. Kids are more likely to reach a goal like forming a new habit when they know specifically what counts as really good performance. Vague goals like "do your best" don't tell them exactly what they need to do to succeed.

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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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 recently, they did. Under pressure to get their grades up for the next round of college admissions (Early Decision 2), a group of students stole an exam.

These cheaters aren't alone, of course. Kids see cheating everywhere: at school, but also in business and politics. One study shows that more than 60% of 9th and 11th graders say they cheat. In the 1940s, 20% of college students reported cheating, but 75-98% of college students today now report cheating.

We are raising a generation of cheaters. In the past, kids struggling in school were more likely to cheat than high-achievers, but today we've created such a fixed-mindset environment in our schools that it is the college-bound students who are the most likely to cheat as they struggle to reach the seemingly super-heroic levels of achievement required for college admissions. It isn't enough to be a star Ballerina, fluent in Mandarin, student body president, and chief volunteer coordinator: kids today also have all A's. As my best friend, a professor at Northwestern, just posted on Facebook, "when did an 'A minus' become a grade that one can challenge with a straight face and even indignation toward the prof?" It shouldn't be a surprise that kids are willing to cheat when an A- is a disaster (don't even talk to these kids about the nightmare that is a B+).

Why do kids cheat? They report lots of reasons (see below), but cheating is more about fixed-mindsets and perfectionism than anything. Research shows that growth-mindset individuals don't cheat—and they perform better in high school even without cheating.

What parents and teachers can do to discourage cheating:

• Foster the growth-mindset. I think this is the most important thing we can do to stop raising cheaters. To learn more, go here:
  • The Psychology of Success
  • Achievement Doesn't Matter
  • The Right Way to Praise Kids
  • Let Your Kids Fail
  • How To Make Your Kid into a Perfectionist
  • How to Stop Being a Perfectionist
• Tell your kids—or your students—where you stand on cheating. Studies show that although children are born with the capacity to be moral, parents and schools need to further nurture and encourage these values. Discuss different kinds of cheating behaviors and talk about why they are self-defeating.
• Make sure your own behavior models the importance of trustworthiness and honesty. Kids who overhear adults bragging about undeclared income on their tax returns or how they talked their way out of speeding tickets may on some level learn that it is similarly okay to cut corners to get good grades.
• Foster a love of the learning process. Research shows that students who believe that their schools and parents value extrinsic variables (performance, GPA) over intrinsic variables (learning, improvement) are more likely to cheat.
• If a student does cheat, ask if it is an isolated incident or part of a larger pattern of dishonesty. Cheating once isn't necessarily reflective of dishonesty overall, and just talking about cheating can often address isolated incidents. But if it seems to be only part of a larger problem, address it as such.
• Teachers need to be supportive, respectful, and fair when dealing with students. Research shows that students will reciprocate with respect in turn, and refrain from cheating. Consistent and fair grading policies also help.
• Emphasize effort over performance. Instead of making your approval contingent upon achievement and grades, stress the importance of effort and growth. Studies show that the more involved and interested students feel in the learning process itself, the less likely they are to cheat.

Kids rob themselves of many things, of course, when they cheat. Their real academic performance, as well as how much they enjoy learning, suffers profoundly. Our society and institutions suffer, too, when people cheat. Kids who cheat in school become more likely to lie on their resumes and cheat at work.

Do you think the kids in your life cheat? If so, why do they do it? What can we do collectively to create a growth-mindset culture devoid of liars, cheaters, and thieves? If you are a high school student, we'd love your comments, too. Have you cheated? Why? What can parents and teachers do to help you be more growth-mindset?

9 Reasons Students Cheat

The Right Way
to Praise Kids

1. Students today are under considerable pressure to achieve; studies show that these pressures can lead to cheating.
2. Peers have a tremendous influence. Peer groups can both teach academic dishonesty and provide support for it: studies show that one of the top reasons they cheat is because other kids do it.
3. Knowing that others are cheating can create another form of pressure on already stressed-out kids: the non-cheater feels disadvantaged. In this way, dishonesty can become perceived as an acceptable or necessary way of getting ahead (or just keeping up).
4. The academic environment can also influence how pervasive cheating is. Research shows that when kids believe that their school or classroom stresses performance goals—their primary academic task is to get a good grade or demonstrate one's ability to others—kids start to believe that cheating is acceptable, and they report higher incidences of cheating.
5. Students who tend to self-handicap (those who do things to make it look like external factors are responsible for their poor performance, like blaming others and making excuses when they are intentionally not trying hard) are also more likely to cheat. Both self-handicapping and cheating are used by students who are concerned about looking incompetent.
6. Teens who worry about school are also more likely to say they cheat.
7. Whether or not a school has a clearly articulated Honor Code makes a significant difference. Not surprisingly, schools that lack clear policies about what constitutes cheating have more problems with more academic dishonesty.
8. Similarly, students are more likely to cheat when they feel that there is little chance of getting caught, that the penalties for cheating are inconsequential, or that faculty don't whole-heartedly support academic integrity. Students who observe that cheating is overlooked or treated lightly by teachers are more likely to cheat just to "keep up" with other students (who are also presumably cheating).
9. Finally, students with poor study habits and time management skills more often feel the need to cheat just to keep up.

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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According to John Gottman, one of my all-time favorite researchers, emotion-coaching is the key to raising happy, resilient, and well-adjusted kids. His research—30 years of it—shows that it is not enough to be a warm, engaged, and loving parent. We also need to emotion coach our kids.

Emotion-coached kids tend to experience fewer negative feelings and more positive feelings. The three steps below are adapted from Gottman's book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, which I can't recommend highly enough.

This first step to coping with negative emotions (in yourself, your children, or in your mother-in-law) is to figure out what they are feeling and to accept those feelings. Even if we don't accept the bad behavior that often accompanies negative emotions, we still want to send the message that all feelings are okay, even the worst ones. Terrible feelings like jealousy and fear and greed are invitations to grow, to understand ourselves better and to become a better person. When you see these "undesirable" emotions in children, think of them as opportunities to both learn more about their inner-world and—importantly—to teach them how to deal with negative emotions now and in the future.

Step One: Label and Validate the Feelings-at-Hand
Before we can accurately label and then validate our children's feelings, we need to empathize with them—first to understand what it is they are feeling, and then to communicate what we understand to them. This is simple, but not always easy.

Say Molly is feeling bad because she got into some trouble at school for talking too much in class (no idea where she might have gotten that tendency). Kids frequently displace negative emotions onto their loving parents and caregivers, meaning that while Molly might be mad at herself, a classmate, or her teacher, it would be normal for her to displace that emotion onto me when she got home. So when I tell her she can't have a playdate with Claire right that second, it provokes an angry fury, during which she throws her backpack against the wall I've asked her to hang it on and calls her sister a "stupid idiot" she would never want to play with "in a million years."

Instead of dealing with the bad behavior right away (time out!) this is a terrific opportunity to accomplish the first step in emotion-coaching: validating and labeling the negative emotions.

Me: "Molly, I can see that you are very angry and frustrated. Is there anything else that you are feeling?"

Molly: "I am SO SO SO MAD AT YOU."

Me: "You are mad at me, VERY mad at me. Are you also feeling disappointed because I won't let you have a playdate right now?"

Molly: "YES!! I want to have a playdate right NOW."

Me: "You seem sad." (Crawling into my lap, Molly whimpers a little and rests her head on my shoulder.)

I've now helped Molly identify and label several feelings: angry, frustrated, disappointed, sad. The larger our children's emotion vocabulary is, the easier it is to label emotions in the heat of the moment. I have also validated how Molly has been feeling: she knows I think it is okay to have felt all those "bad" things. Interestingly, now she is calm, tired—clearly needing a snack and a cuddle.

Step Two: Deal with the Bad Behavior (if applicable)
At this point, I just want to move on and forget about the back-pack throwing and name calling. But it is very important to set limits so that kids learn how to behave well even in the face of strong, negative emotions. I tell her that she needs to go to her room and have a 5 minute time-out, and I make it clear that these behaviors are not okay: "It is okay to feel angry and frustrated, but it is never okay to throw things or call people mean names. When the timer goes off, please apologize to your sister and come have a snack." Ten minutes after the initial incident, I am sitting with Molly while she eats. Time for step three.

Step Three: Problem Solve
Now is the time to dig a little deeper, to help Molly figure out how to handle the situation better in the future. After we've labeled and validated the emotions arising out of the problem, we can turn to the problem itself: "Molly, did anything happen at school today that is also making you feel bad?" At this point, Molly told me all about the scene at school where she had to sit at a table by herself because she was too disruptive during reading. I relate to how bad it would feel for my hyper-social and teacher-pleasing child to be both isolated from her friends and to have disappointed her teacher, so it was easy for me to empathize here. We talked about how sad and lonely she felt doing her work alone when the other kids were working together, and how embarrassed she felt by being singled out. We also talk about how she felt hungry and exhausted when she came home from school.

I did not tell her how she ought to feel ("Molly, I hope you feel bad for throwing your backpack against the wall") because that would make her distrust what she did feel (the backpack-throwing might well have felt good). The goal is to put her in touch with her emotions, good or bad. So even during the problem solving, I was labeling and validating more of her feelings: lonely, embarrassed, hungry, tired.

Next, brainstorm together possible ways to solve a problem or prevent it from happening again. The more we parents can stay in our role as a coach—holding back all of our terrific (bossy!) ideas and letting kids come up with their own—the better. When we talk about what Molly can do when she feels angry (instead of throwing her backpack, for example), she is more likely to actually try the solutions if they come from her. She decides the next time she comes home from school feeling frustrated and disappointed, she'll walk the dog around the block while she eats her snack until she feels better.

That's all there is to it! First, label and validate the emotions you see. Second, deal with misbehavior if you need to. Finally, help your child solve the problem.

You are now a bona-fide emotion-coach.

Let us know how emotion coaching works for you! What situations did it help with? Do you have questions? Post a comment below!

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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