Greater Good - The Science of a Meaningful Life

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We don't care about results, we care about effort. Seriously.

Christine Carter, Ph.D: So my husband, Mike, overheard me tell Fiona that it didn't matter if she wasn't any good at softball, only that she practiced and made an effort. Later, he asked me, "Do we really want to invest the time and money schleping her to practice and games if softball isn't her thing?"

Kelly Corrigan: That's a notion that's been around forever, that everyone has "a thing" and parents should help their children find it. I remember feeling panicky as a kid because my brothers each had a thing and I didn't. Or rather, I had a thing, but it was vague and hard to label. Other people's "things" were simple: tennis, chess, drama. My thing was making things – collages, stationary, hot pot holders. So I'm with Mike. Why force it with Fiona if softball isn't her thing? Why not keep looking?

CC: Because that means it's only worth doing if you are very good at it. That means it's only fun when you succeed.

KC: Yeah but can we honestly say we don't want our kids to do things they're good at? And like I said last week, if it seems hard to get them to try new things now, when they're so small, imagine how hard it will be when they are in high school, when their achievements might make or break college admissions.

CC: The mindset research we discussed last week doesn't imply that growth-mindset kids will never again experience the sweet smell of success. It is a belief about what causes success: innate gifts or practice.

KC: I hate to press the point but some kids are good at softball the first time they hold a bat. Some kids see visions of math equations.

CC: Well, here's the thing: the research clearly shows that growth-mindset leads to greater success than emphasizing results. More compelling than that, at least to me, is that kids enjoy their activities more if they are taught to focus on the process rather than the results. Listen to Jackie Joyner-Kerssee: "For me, the joy of athletics had never resided in winning…I derive just as much happiness from the process as from the results. I don't mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I've done as well as I possibly could. If I lose, I just go back to the track and work some more."

KC: Well isn't that tidy? Kids who choose challenge and improvement over an easy win learn more AND are happier.

CC: It's all in the research. And Suniya Luthar and Bronwyn Becker at Columbia have found that kids whose parents over-emphasize their achievements are more likely to have high levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse compared to other kids. It's easy to do. Look at what you hang up in your house. Listen to what you tell your parents about your children. I catch myself all the time.

KC: So jumping up and down about homeruns or hat tricks or straight As—all mistakes. So I guess it's no good to promise a pizza party for 100% on the science exam?

CC: I think a lot of families probably have a tradition of helping their kids set goals at the start of a school year. Carol Dweck—the woman behind most of the mindset research—reminds parents simply to remember that goals should be set around building skills and making an effort, not a specific outcome.

KC: What if they want the lead role or the varsity letter or the big A+?

CC: Then make a plan with them. Help them see a way to get there. Discuss strategies. Give them the coaching they need to improve. Maybe Fiona doesn't seem so good at softball because she isn't practicing enough, or she's got the wrong idea about how to make the bat connect with the ball. All we can do is help our kids with their approach—and send the message that we expect their full commitment and solid effort.

KC: And mistakes. We expect mistakes.

CC: Or just that we don't expect perfection. Dweck cautions that "speed and perfection are the enemy of difficult learning." When kids think we are happy when they do something quickly or perfectly, they start to think that they shouldn't take on anything challenging.

KC: Georgia's got a long list of things she can do quickly and perfectly. Do I really not praise her for a job well done?

CC: You really don't, or she won't want to move on from her list. Dweck recommends saying in a situation like that: "Whoops! I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let's do something you can really learn from!"

Kids with "growth mindsets" are more likely embrace challenges and enjoy their activities.

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One Message to Get Through

Kelly Corrigan: To kick off this series, give me something really high impact. If I'm only gonna get one thing really right this year, what should that one thing be?

Christine Carter, Ph.D.: ONE thing? If only. But I do think there is a major message to send your kids over and over again this year.

KC: Got my pen ready.

CC: Write GROWTH MINDSET. I've just reviewed Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's research on the psychology of success, and fostering a growth mindset is hugely important. Her research shows that your mindset about how people learn can profoundly influence how kids feel about school, and also how successful they are academically, athletically—even socially and artistically.

KC: My mindset, or my kids' mindset?

CC: Your kids,' which comes from yours. There are two basic mindsets. People with fixed-mindsets believe that their talents personalities are inborn, carved in stone. People with growth-mindset believe that that success is a result of effort as much as or more than aptitude.

KC: Like nature or nurture, right? I gotta say, when I became a parent, especially the second time, I became a believer in nature. Math comes easily to Georgia, Claire is good with language, my husband is naturally musical.

CC: That's all fixed mindset thinking, which seems harmless enough but is actually sending a powerful message about learning and especially about effort. Nearly three decades of research has shown profound consequences when kids believe that their intelligence (or athletic ability or, for that matter, anything else) is innate rather than believing that talents are something they can develop.

KC: Oh brother, I'm in trouble. I'm always commenting on their "natural" talents… saying things like "You're so creative…you can really sing…you're a whiz at math." And on the flip side, when I see them get frustrated, I often try to take the pressure off them by saying, "You're not going to be good at everything. Some people just aren't built for soccer…."

CC: Well here's the rub: fixed-mindset thinking undervalues the role of effort and learning. To fixed-mindset kids, effort is an indication that they aren't naturally gifted. If a kid that's been told he's "so smart" can't figure something out easily, does that mean everyone was wrong? If you tell your kids that their talents are inborn, research has shown that this creates urgency in them to prove their "gifts" over and over. That means they start to choose activities based on whether or not they will succeed or fail, look smart or dumb, be accepted or rejected.

KC: I see this sometimes. My daughter draws this incredible, detailed, elaborate flower. When a new babysitter comes over, she draws her flower, the sitter comments on how talented Georgia is, and I see my daughter beam. But I know if the sitter asked her to draw a tree or an apple, she wouldn't even try because she doesn't want to look bad.

CC: I was very much a fixed-mindset-student in grade school, and I gotta tell you, it is very uncomfortable to go through life worrying about whether or not people think you're good at whatever it is you're trying to be good at. I want my kids to evaluate situations differently than I did—in terms of whether they are going to have fun, learn something, become a better person. Not whether they are going to win, succeed, be the best.

KC: So how do we create the growth-mindset in our kids? How do we help them enjoy things they have not mastered?

CC: The good news is that researchers create growth-mindsets in people pretty easily. Simply send the message that effort is the name of the game rather than achievement. Define their success as how hard they try rather than what kind of grades they get or whether they win the game. That's the growth-mindset.

KC: Interestingly, this is why I like choir. No points and no individual contributors. Just a big mass of sound that gets better, as a whole, with each rehearsal. But effort in most other realms does not count more than achievement. And trying to sell that is downright counter-culture. Every football game we watch on TV has a scoreboard in the corner. Every movie has a star.

CC: No kidding – and think about the mindset that the Princess craze is modeling. Princesses are born princesses; they wait to be saved. Cinderella isn't exactly a model of gumption.

KC: Hey, at least she got out of bed. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty just lay there snoring until prince charming turns up. Definitely not growth-oriented. And people love the narrative about the athlete who rolls out of bed and hits a 300-yard drive or the CEO who keeps coming up with the next big thing in his sleep.

CC: We need to counter those messages, pointing out that Tiger Woods has been practicing golf every day since he was three, and Albert Einstein was a mediocre student who found his passion and stuck to it. And the girl in Spanish class who is doing so well? She asks tons of questions, practices every chance she gets, and spends a lot of time doing homework.

KC: The magic formula isn't magic. It's time on task.

CC: That's it. You now have your high impact message. As Coach John Wooden, who led the UCLA basketball to the NCAA Championship 10 times once said: "You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better." To create growth-mindset kids, we need to repeatedly communicate: "I expect effort; I do NOT expect achievement."

KC: I'm there. But I gotta say, valuing effort over achievement is easier for the parent of an elementary school kid than a high school sophomore, whose grades or athletic performance might matter more.

CC: That's an inner battle we'll take on next week!

Did you know that happiness is a skill you can teach your children?

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The Childhood Seeds of Adult Happiness
Christine Carter

Happiness is, in many ways, a skill that parents can teach their children. Kids develop habits of thinking, feeling, and behavior based in large part on what we teach them about the world, their relationships, and our expectations. These habits profoundly influence how happy they are. The good news is that there are lots of simple things we parents can teach our children that will lead to greater happiness.

I think of a happy childhood or a happy life as one that is full of what we call "prosocial" and other positive emotions. 50 years of happiness research shows us that people find happiness through their connections to other people, and prosocial emotions are those that help us make those connections—like love, altruism, compassion, and empathy. And then there are all of the other positive emotions that a happy life is full of. Positive emotions about the past, like gratitude and appreciation. Present-based positive emotions are a little more obvious—joy and contentment, for example. And future-based positive emotions are important, too, like optimism, faith, and confidence.

Loads of research points to teaching kids emotional literacy as the foundation of happiness. Emotional literacy is people's ability to read and understand emotions—to recognize, interpret, and respond constructively to their own emotions and the emotions of others. Emotional literacy is one of the most important keys to mental health and well-being.

Children who can regulate their emotions are better at soothing themselves when they are upset, which means that they experience negative emotions like fear and anger for a shorter period of time. They have fewer infectious illnesses and are better at focusing their attention. Such children understand and relate to people better, and form stronger friendships. Emotional literacy is one of the best predictors of school performance and career success, better even than IQ. This is in part because children who are being taught emotional literacy skills are better learners; they also have better relationships in the classroom. Emotional literacy fosters resilience and helps close academic achievement gaps, promoting gains in nearly every area of children's lives—most notably happiness and school success.

That's what this blog is all about: how to foster habits and mindsets that will set the stage for positive emotions. There are a lot of things we can do as parents—simple, routine practices—to increase the odds that our children will be happy. And everything we talk about will be based on solid scientific research that draws on many fields: psychology, sociology, linguistics, education, anthropology, medicine—even organizational behavior.