What's a parent to do?

Greetings

Recently my daughter Katie sent me an article on parenting in The New Yorker, "How Not to Talk to your Kids". The article reported on research that has been done on how children react to praise/encouragement. While the research was done on elementary school children, the researchers stated that it could be applied to children under the age of five.

The researchers wanted to find out what kind of praise motivated children more, to be told they did well because they worked hard or because they were smart. What they found was fascinating. Researchers gave the children the same test. The children who were told they did well because they had made an effort were more likely to select a harder test the next time while the children who were told that they did well because they were smart tended not to select a harder test and to shy away from areas where they didn't feel confident.

Why? The researchers postulated that the children who were told they were smart were invested in continuing to be viewed as smart while the other children felt that if they worked hard enough, they would do well. The children who were praised for their specific efforts were more likely to challenge themselves further in the next round.

Remember when we were all told that if we built up our children's self esteem that they would be successful in everything? We eliminated competition, gave prizes to everyone and never uttered a negative word to our kids.

This research claims that self esteem is not necessarily a key predictor of a child's success in school or reduction in substance abuse or aggression.

So what is a parent to do? This research looks strong and is probably valuable information for parents to have but so was the research on self esteem when it came out. In this world of "too much information" perhaps the best thing we can all do is read what is out there, decide what fits us and our children the best and go from there.

As long as we know in our hearts that we are doing the best we can, that we are providing our kids with love, learning opportunities, safety, and a healthy and nurturing environment, then I think they will grow up to be successful and happy and we will know that we did a good job because we were not just smart but also tried really hard.

Let me hear from you.


Jeanne

Sesame Street Memories

Hello

Recently I was invited to attended a meeting at Talaris to get an update on Sesame Street . The CEO and the Director of Education for Sesame Street gave the presentation to a small group of people and I was one of the lucky ones invited.

Truthfully, I hadn't thought much about Sesame Street in a while. Not since my children have grown up. So I was very surprised and impressed to hear that Sesame Street is now in 120 countries. It is in India and Israel and Palestine lots of South American and European countries. Sesame Street worked with the Israelis and the Palestinians to do cooperative programming.

Sesame Street has also developed a program specifically for the children of parents who are serving in a war zone. Many of these children have their parents, sometimes both their parents, leave for a second and third tour of duty. This program, Talk, Listen and Connect(TLC) is being distributed to bases across the country. Click on the link but make sure you have plenty of tissues handy, it really gets to you.

Listening to the dedicated people from Sesame Street brought back a flood of memories for me. I was a very young mother of a six month old son named Andy when my husband left for Viet Nam. When Andy turned one, I discovered Sesame Street. Andy and I would cuddle on the couch, I would say the letters and numbers with "the Count", we would laugh at the Cookie Monster and Bert and Ernie and I would always look forward to the unexpected celebrities who showed up. I probably got more out of the show than Andy did. But it gave us the time in a scary and upsetting period in our lives to just be together and enjoy ourselves.

I talked to the Sesame people and told them how happy I was to hear about the TLC program and how much I was comforted by Sesame Street when I was going through a similar situation. They were very pleased and proud of the work they have done in that field and happy to hear that their program helped others so many years ago.

In the course of our discussion, the people from Sesame Street told me something interesting. They said that they always build in something for the parents to keep them there so that the children aren't watching the show alone. They also said that they never tell the parents what not to do and only deliver positive and reinforcing messages. I suddenly understood the key to their longevity and success and why Sesame Street is now in so many countries around the world.

Do you have any memories you would like to share about Sesame Street? Add a comment.

Jeanne