1. The Inverse Power of Praise

2. The Lost Hour (Sleep)

3. Why White Parents Don’t Talk about Race

4. Why Kids Lie

5. The Search for Intelligent Life in Kindergarten

6. The Sibling Effect

7. The Science of Teen Rebellion

8. Can Self-Control be Taught?

9. Plays Well with Others

10. Why Hannah Talks and Alyssa Doesn’t

11. Conclusion: Gratitude

Presenter’s Note: I assembled this presentation

based on the audio version of this book and dictated notes to myself in the car as I listened to it. As a result, I will refer to “the researchers” A LOT as I did not often remember the names of the specific people behind a given experiment or finding, nor would my dictation software have been capable of accurately transcribing their names. The book does talk about the specific people behind the research for anyone who is interested in reading it firsthand or keeping up on their latest findings. But as for this presentation, “the researchers” was the best I could do.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why telling your child “You’re so smart” leaves him or

her with no good way to cope with failure.

• Why children praised for their intelligence tend to become risk averse, dependent, and hostile.

• Why praising effort and persistence achieves what praising intelligence attempts but fails.

Research conducted on “gifted students” (those scoring in the top 10% of all students) has found that a large portion of all gifted students tend to:

Lack confidence in their abilities

Adopt lower standards of success

Underrate the importance of effort

Overestimate the amount of help they need from parents

Why is it that many of the children who, by a number of objective measures, should be the most confident and ambitious tend to be exactly the opposite?

One big reason turns out to be the type of praise that these children receive from parents and teachers: They are being praised for their intelligence.

• 85% of American parents in one survey believed that praising their child’s intelligence (i.e. “You are so smart!”) is very important. So what’s wrong with praising a child for their intelligence? Doesn’t praising their intelligence help them to develop the self-confidence they need to aim high and achieve their goals?

• As it turns out, praising a child’s intelligence does exactly the opposite.

• One possible explanation is that children who are praised for their intelligence learn to separate the world into two categories: Things they are naturally good at and things they are not.

• This has a number of undesirable side-effects, such as children learning to avoid subjects and arenas where they aren’t instantly successful and feeling threatened by anyone or anything that challenges or jeopardizes their identity as a “smart kid.”

• Consider the following experiment…

THE STUDY: Several classes of young students were given a test and were then randomly assigned to receive a single line of praise: “You must be really smart at this” or “You must have worked really hard at this.”

The researcher wanted to know how powerful of an effect a single

statement like that could have on a child.

After completing the test the children were given a second test and were allowed to choose one of two options.

Option 1: A test described as “more difficult than the first test, but it

could also help you learn more.”

Option 2: A test described as being similar in difficulty to the first.

After completing the second test, children were asked to describe their experiences with the follow-up test. They were then given the first test again to measure any change in their scores compared to the first time.

THE RESULTS:

The students praised for their effort (E-group) chose the more difficult

second test at a rate of over 90%.

Less than 50% of the students praised for their intelligence (I-group)

chose the harder test.

○ These findings led the researches to hypothesize that children are getting the

message: “Try to look smart and don’t take any risks that could lead to making

a mistake.”

Those who took the harder test:

○ E-group: Respondents said that they liked the harder test and wanted to learn

how to do better.

○ I-group: Respondents struggled much more and complained about the test’s

difficulty.

On the third test (same as a the first):

○ E-group: Scores were 30% HIGHER on average compared to the first time.

○ I-group: Scores were 20% LOWER on average compared to the first time.

CONCLUSIONS: Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control. It gives them a sense that they can influence their own performance through applying increasing amounts of effort to overcome challenges and rebound from failures.

Emphasizing intelligence gives the child no good strategy for coping with failure, and challenges become threats to a child’s identity instead of opportunities to grow and learn.

For example, one study randomly assigned groups of students to two

different praise groups—intelligence and effort—and gave them a test.

After they got their scores they were given the option to either see: 1)

the answer key to see what they’d gotten wrong or 2) the class

rankings on test performance. Those praised for their intelligence were

more than twice as likely to choose to see their ranking rather than the

test key, while those praised for effort overwhelmingly chose the test

key rather than ranking.*

The inverse praise effect has been replicated across all

socioeconomic and age groups in children, with the brightest girls

showing the most dramatic collapse in performance after a failure if

they had been previously praised for their intelligence.

A meta-analysis* of the effects of praising intelligence in children

consistently found:

Higher levels of risk aversion

Lowered sense of autonomy

Shorter task persistence

A tendency to give answers in a tone of voice as though they were questions

○ *A meta-analysis is a research method where ALL available research, published and often

unpublished, on a given topic is compiled and studied and their findings compared and

patterns examined.

Much of this is counter-intuitive, as research on praising adults has

found that praise, even of innate traits rather than specific behaviors,

is correlated with positive outcomes. However, children are not adults.

So what should we do to help our kids?

Teach that Intelligence is Learned, not Innate, and can be Increased

with Effort

Another study randomly assigned low-achieving minority students to attend one of two in-

school workshops: The first was a control workshop, while the second was a workshop

about how intelligence is learned and can be improved through effort. Just two, 30-minute

classes improved the second group’s math test scores dramatically compared to the control

group.

Teach and Praise Persistence

Persistence allows children to exert greater and greater levels of effort in the face of failure

and prolonged periods of delayed gratification. Researchers have found that the brain does

not develop persistence when it is rewarded too frequently because they learn to give up

when the rewards disappear. Numerous studies have shown that intermittent/irregular

rewards have the most positive effect on developing persistence.

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature

of the task has changed, but our ability to do so has increased.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• In this section we will discuss: • Why most school start times are undermining our

children’s performance and even hindering development.

• Why a lack of sleep in teenagers helps them remember bad memories but not good ones.

• Why getting less than 8 hours of sleep is an inconvenience for adults, but a disaster for kids.

Studies have shown that many American children today are getting an hour less sleep on average compared to 30 years ago.

Some children are so heavily scheduled with sports, clubs, teams,

college preparation and other obligations that they are getting six hours

of sleep per night or less. But that’s the price of being prepared for the

future and getting a head-start on adult life. So they sleep less,

“What’s the big deal?”

The human brain is not fully developed until age 21. Until this age the brain is constantly growing, developing, and rewiring itself. Much of this is done during the sleeping hours when more resources can be devoted to the brain while the other parts of the body are at rest. The cumulative effects of shorting the brain of that extra hour of devoted resources and focused development seems to be having a more dramatic impact than was previously believed. Some research even indicates that some losses are permanent and irreversible.

A FEW STUDIES

A group of sixth-grade children were randomly assigned to get an hour less sleep than

normal for three days compared to a control group. After the three days, both groups were

given an cognitive aptitude test. The sleep deprived children lost the equivalent of 2 YEARS

of cognitive maturation. In essence, a mildly sleep deprived sixth-grader will perform at the

cognitive level of a fourth-grader.

Two studies looked at the cost of “sleep-shifting,” a common occurrence where children go

to sleep later than usual, as on weekends. They found that every hour later that their sleep

schedule was shifted cost them an average of 7 points on a standard IQ test.

A study looking at high school sleep schedules found that A students got an average of 15

minutes more sleep compared to B students who, in turn, got 15 minutes more compared to

C students.

A school district in Minnesota shifted start times from 7:30am to 8:30am and found a 56

point increase in their top students’ math SAT scores and a 156 point increase in their verbal

SAT scores. Additionally, students reported higher levels of motivation, lower levels of

depression, and police reported a 25% drop in teenage traffic accidents after the change.

Chronic Sleep Loss and Depression

The emotional context of memories has been found to determine which

part of the brain processes them. Sleep deprivation affects different

brain areas differently, and one of the most effected is the Hippocampus

and one of the least effected is the Amygdala. So? The Hippocampus

is used to process and store positive memories, while the Amygdala is

used to process and store negative memories. The result is that sleep

deprivation, as is so common in high schoolers, makes it harder to recall

pleasant memories and easier to remember bad ones.

○ A study tested sleep deprived college students and found that they were able

to recall 81% of vocabulary words with a negative connotation like “cancer” or

“garbage,” but only 31% of words with a positive or neutral connotation, like

“sunshine” or “basket.”

Dropping below 8 hours of sleep in teenagers doubles the risk for

clinical depression with1/8 of teenagers in a nationwide survey

reporting clinical levels of depression and likely many more suffering

from non-clinical degrees of melancholy.

Chronic Sleep Loss and Obesity

TV has long been, and still is, the favorite whipping boy

of the anti-obesity crowd. However, a study of a large

national data set found no correlation between TV

watching and obesity in children. It found that thin kids

watched just as much TV as overweight kids, and that

kids tend to trade between similar activities: If a parent

says “Stop watching TV,” they’ll more likely go read a

book or sit listening to music than go play outside.

Even though obesity has spiked exponentially since the

1970s, children today watch only 7 minutes more per

day on average than they did then. However, they do

spend an extra 30 minutes a day on video games and

computers, but the obesity epidemic began to spike in

the 1980s, well before these were common. So…

Chronic Sleep Loss and Obesity (cont.)

STUDY: Scientists in Canada, Japan, and Australia found that children who get

less than 8 hours of sleep have a 300% higher chance of obesity compared to

children who get a full 10 hours of sleep on average.

STUDY: Research on middle- and high-schoolers found that the risk of obesity

went up 80% for every hour of sleep lost.

STUDY: Children have been found to spend 40% of their sleep time in “slow

wave sleep” compared to only 4% for adults. This stage of sleep is associated

with hormones which regulate physical development including appetite and fat

production. Disrupting this slow wave sleep cycle in children has been found to

have a much more dramatic affect on their risk for obesity than it does for adults.

CONCLUSIONS:

Children need their sleep! 8-10 hours is ideal, and while adults say they can do

with less, studies have even found that going from 8 to 6 hours a night for two

weeks results in a performance impairment equivalent to staying awake for 24

hours straight. Fortunately, for adults, this is all the sleep loss means. For

children, the consequences of chronic sleep loss are much more significant.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why there may be only a short window in which to

influence children’s racial opinions.

• Why pretending to be “color blind” has little effect on children’s racial attitudes.

• Why diverse schools can actually reinforce, rather than refute, racial stereotypes.

Studies have found that 75% of White parents report “never” or “rarely” talking to their children about race. Another study found a majority of White parents reported feeling “uncomfortable” talking to their children about race in any meaningful way, but that parents who did found significant improvements in their child’s responses on racial attitudes tests.

One experiment randomly assigned parents to engage in different racial

education activities with their children: 1) watch a movie about race with

their children, 2) read a story/book about race with their children, or 3)

have a script-assisted discussion about race with their children. The

experimenters found that a large number of the parents in the group

assigned to directly discuss race with their children suddenly dropped

out of the study, while almost no parents from the other two groups

dropped out. They gave various reasons for dropping out, but no one

said what the researchers suspected was the real reason: The parents

were just not comfortable talking to their children directly about race.

From a young age children are prone to “in-group favoritism” where they group themselves with people they feel are similar to them. They assign their “in-group” all of those characteristics they feel are favorable. On the other hand, they group those who they feel are dissimilar from them together and tend to assign to this “out-group” all unfavorable characteristics.

Many white parents believe that by their pretending not to notice different races—modeling “color blindness”—that their children won’t notice race either. But race—like gender—is overt and obvious to children and is an easy variable for them to use when assigning people to groups.

A study of six-year-olds presented them with a deck of cards with kids

faces on them. They were instructed to sort the cards into two piles

however they wanted.

○ 16% sorted the deck based on gender.

○ 16% sorted the deck based on some other factor.

○ 66% sorted the deck based on race. Children DO notice race!

Diverse Classrooms and Racial Attitudes/Integration

A study of first graders found that they engaged in high levels of

integrated play during recess after working on a project in an

interracial study group. However, the same study done on third

graders showed almost no effect, with the children showing no

increase in integrated play after completing the project with their

interracial study group.

○ This led researchers to hypothesize that racial constructs are formed early

and that once they are formed they become resistant to restructuring.

Another study of racially diverse schools found that children in the most

diverse schools were also the most likely to self-segregate, while

students in less diverse schools were actually more likely to have

interracial friendships.

This led the researchers to hypothesize that the greater the diversity in a school,

the greater the number of groups that a student’s race implicitly excludes them

from joining, such as certain tables in the lunch room or certain school clubs.

The result is that there are higher levels of pressure in diverse schools to

associate more and more exclusively with one’s own race.

Racial “Confidence” and Stereotypes

Two separate studies of Black and Latino high school students found that those

who rated their skin color as being “More Black” or “More Latino” compared to

others of their race also tended to be the highest performers in school. By

contrast, those who rated their skin color as “Less Black” or “Less Latino”

typically performed worse and appeared to feel less secure with their standing in

their own racial group and thus felt more pressure to conform to racial

stereotypes in order to avoid being labeled as “acting White.”

○ These findings support other research which has shown that group acceptance and

group identity is extremely important for teenagers.

CONCLUSIONS:

Race is readily apparent to children, and if parents do not discuss it with them

they are left to draw their own conclusions about the similarities, and more likely

differences, between themselves and those from other races. Educating

children, especially prior to third grade, about the similarities between their own

race and others, will help children to develop better-informed and more positive

racial attitudes and avoid the problems of their natural in-group favoritism.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why fear of punishment does little to deter lying.

• Why parents “lie” much more than they think they do if they use their children’s definition of lying.

• Why we should listen to, and not reprimand, tattle-tales.

Adults are not as good at catching kids lying as they think they are.

A study of thousands of adults had them watch 8 videotaped interviews with children

telling about an experience of being bullied. After watching the videos, the adults were

asked to decide whether or not the child was lying, but then also to rate how confident

they were in their answers. The study found that the majority of adults scored no

better than chance, and also revealed a number of biases most adults seem to hold

about children and lying:

○ 1- Boys lie more than girls (Not True)

○ 2- Younger kids lie more than older kids (Not True)

○ 3- Introverts lie more than extroverts (Not True, and actually introverts are more likely to get

caught as they don’t possess the social skills necessary to lie as convincingly as extroverts)

Even worse, similar studies have shown that parents score only slightly better than

chance when detecting lies from their own children. Police officers actually score

worse than chance (45%), partially due to the fact that they are trained to look for

signs of lying in adults, and it turns out the signs of lying in children are much different.

Modern research has overturned much of the conventional wisdom about children and lying.

Several studies using a test known as “The Peeking Game” have found:

○ Only about 30% of 3-year olds will peek, and 75% will fess up about it.

○ BUT about 80% of 4-year olds will peek, and only 15% will fess up without at

least trying to lie their way out of it once.

In other words, by 4-years old, about 85% of children have begun

experimenting with lying.

Studies have found that children:

○ Are much less tolerant of lying and liars than adults

○ Are more likely to think anyone who tells a lie is a bad person

○ Believe ANY lie is morally wrong and all lies are equally bad

Children have a very difficult time understanding and weighing intent

with lying. To a child, ANY false statement is seen as a lie, and any false

statement—including by a parent—that goes unpunished is seen as

condoning lying. Even simple mistakes in information are seen as lies.

Getting Children to Tell The Truth Another version of the peeking game experiment had experimenters ask the

children to promise to tell the truth before asking them if they peeked.

Asking this question beforehand did reduce lying, but only by about 25%.

Washington and the Wolf

○ Another version of the peeking game had the researcher read one of two stories to

the children before beginning: 1) The story of the boy who cried wolf, or 2) the story

of George Washington and the cherry tree. The story of the boy who cried wolf, for

those who don’t know, results in the boy being eaten by a ravenous wolf when

people stop believing him after he makes several false reports of a wolf attack.

The latter story goes that George receives a new hatchet from his father, which he

uses to chop down his father’s prize cherry tree. When George’s father confronts

him about the tree, George responds truthfully about what he did. His father

replies, “George, I’m glad you cut down that cherry tree. Hearing you tell the truth

is worth more than 100 cherry trees.”

So which story was better at reducing lying in children?

*Most adults respond that the boy who cried wolf story will have the greater

effect on reducing lying.

The boy who cried wolf story was actually found to slightly increase lying.

The story of George Washington reduced lying by 75% in boys, and 50%

in girls. This remained true even when replacing George Washington with

a nondescript character.

WHY?

Studies have found that until age 11, children only consider the impact lying has

on them and use it indiscriminately to avoid punishment. Children in this age

group almost always respond that the main problem with lying is that you get

punished. The story of the boy who cried wolf only serves to reinforce the threat

of punishment and causes the child to hyperfocus on their own well being and

nothing else. Studies have found that children who live in constant threat of

punishment for lying do not lie less, but more, and become better liars at an

earlier age.

A version of the peeking game done in a school which used frequent and harsh

corporal punishment found that children took longer to peek, but still peeked just

as often. They also lied about it and continued lying, knowing that to get caught

now meant severe punishment.

So will removing the threat of punishment decrease lying?

Not by itself. Yet another version of the peeking game has the experimenter tell

the child “I will not be angry if you peeked. I just want you to tell me the truth.”

This promise of immunity alone does nothing to reduce lying. The researchers

concluded that children know they’ve done wrong and that their parents—in spite

of what they say—really wish the child had not done wrong in the first place.

They conclude that if they can convince their parent that they didn’t really break

the rule, that has the best chance of getting back into favor with their parents.

Parents need to give them another option to achieve this redemption.

So what should parents say?

“I will not be upset with you if ______, and if you tell me the truth about

what happened I will be really happy.”

○ This offers both immunity AND a clear route back to good standing in the eyes of

the parent.

These findings show that it is not enough simply to teach that lying is wrong.

Parents must also clearly teach their children the value of honesty.

The White Lie Dilemma

Children see their parents lie all the time for a variety of what are—to

the parents (but not the children)—justifiable reasons, most of which

revolve around smoothing social interactions. One study even found

parents expressing relief and joy when a child lied readily and

convincingly about their true feelings when they were given a lousy

present by an experimenter.

Children learn that honesty often creates conflict, and lying is a way

to keep everyone happy. However, unlike most adults, they have a

hard time differentiating between “smoothing lies” and lies to cover

their wrongdoing. To them, all lying serves to avoid truths that would

make someone, like a parent, unhappy.

On Tattle-Tails

Research on children tattling on each other has found that 9 out of 10 times a child tattles they are

actually telling the truth.

Additionally, while adults feel that tattling by children is incessant, studies have found that for every

one time a child tattles there were 14 times when they were wronged and did not tell an adult.

Very often when a child finally does tell an adult they hear how they need to learn to “work it out”

themselves and not always bring their problems to adults. The result is that children learn to keep

their mouths shut about other kids’ bad behavior, and that this habit carries beyond childhood and

into adolescence. As a result, dangerous behaviors like fighting, substance abuse, and vandalism

go underreported.

CONCLUSIONS

96% of children lie to their parents (the other 4% were lying to the experimenters).

Parents must realize how often they put children in situations where the best

option—to both avoid punishment and disappointing their parents—is to lie.

Parents must be very careful about how they question their children when

seeking the truth: Words and tone that signal that punishment and

disappointment are on the horizon will lead to lies.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why testing for intelligence in kindergarten is a very

flawed practice.

• Why outdated notions about intelligence keep some kids out of gifted programs, while others are kept in who shouldn’t be.

Many schools make “Gifted & Talented” decisions about children based

on intelligence tests given as early as kindergarten. The rationale is that

these gifted children need to be identified as early as possible to

receive the maximum amount of nurturing and preparation possible.

Unfortunately…

Examinations of all of the intelligence tests used in kindergarten to

screen children for placement in gifted programs revealed that they

were only 27% effective. In other words, out of 100 gifted students, the

tests will correctly identify 27 of them as such, while failing to identify

the other 73.

Additional research has found only a 40% correlation between pre-

kindergarten intelligence tests and later school performance, even

when controlling for private vs. public school kids, and gifted vs. non-

gifted kids. In other words, testing intelligence prior to kindergarten is

60% random. The reliability of these tests doesn’t really start improving

until after 3rd grade.

Watch for the Late Bloomers

Other research has found that as many as 30% of children in gifted programs

would have performed below average on intelligence tests had they been

administered before kindergarten. While children who score well prior to

kindergarten tend to continue to do well, the problem is that early testing screens

out those children whose intelligence scores improve dramatically within an extra

year or two of development and maturity after kindergarten.

It is not that these tests are inherently flawed—after third grade the tests show

increasing predictive validity of performance in a number of areas—but

administering them at such an early age severely impacts their validity and

making hard-line decisions about children’s abilities at that age is grossly

misguided.

Many scientists have come up with their own pet batteries of tests designed to

provide the greatest predictive power for identifying children, by looking at

intelligence, attention, social skills, emotional intelligence, etc. However, these

comprehensive (and expensive) tests still max out at around 50% reliability when

given in early childhood.

Mixed Results Some children’s intelligence testing finds that children test very unevenly at

an early age. Their scores on one part of the test will qualify them as gifted,

while their scores on another part will indicate they should be placed in

special education.

This supports the evidence emerging from neuroscience that shows that

children use completely different parts of their brains compared to adults

when solving the same problem.

A child’s brain is constantly rewiring itself and each child’s brain proceeds at

a different pace and emphasizes different priorities.

CONCLUSIONS

Early intelligence testing in children is woefully inaccurate and any long-term

decision for them based on the results of an intelligence test administered

prior to 3rd grade should be challenged.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why parents should teach their children to treat their

siblings like a privilege, not a right.

• Why an only child may actually turn out better socialized than a child with siblings.

• Why a child’s relationship with a friend predicts what kind of sibling they will be.

Conventional wisdom holds that there is an “only child syndrome” which leads to poorly adjusted, socially inept, and spoiled children growing into similarly dysfunctional adults. Siblings, it is believed, serve to help one another learn how to relate to others and get along in a social world. Unfortunately, research on sibling relationships is finding that siblings teach each other all the wrong things.

Sibling Conflict

Research on sibling conflict has found that children spend, on

average, 10 minutes out of every hour in conflict or argument.

Worse, in only 1 out of every 7 times does this conflict end in

reconciliation or compromise. The other 6 times usually end in the

children just withdrawing from one another, typically after the older

child has bullied or intimidated the younger.

Another study of 4-year-olds found that they made seven times as

many controlling or intimidating statements to their siblings

compared to their friends.

Some researchers have drawn the conclusion that children have an incentive to be nice and polite to their friends while they can take their siblings for granted because no matter what they do they will always be there. As a result, sibling relationships are those in which the boundaries of polite society can be pushed to the limit.

“But they grow out of it, right?”

A longitudinal study that followed sets of siblings over 9 years found

that the nature of sibling relationships was very stable over time and

only changed once the oldest sibling moved out or if there was some

type of significant life event in the family. Otherwise, the nature of

the relationship established in childhood stayed pretty much the

same year after year, with the bossy one staying bossy, and the

doormat continuing to let others walk all over them.

In other words, No, they don’t grow out of it (at least, not for a long time).

“So what factors influence sibling relationships?”

Much research has been conducted on different factors including

gender and age spacing, but most of it appears to be mixed. The

one factor that does seem to have a strong predictive affect on

sibling relationships is the quality of that child’s relationship with their

best friend.

This research seems to show that the conventional wisdom—that

children practice their social skills on their siblings and then apply

them in broader society—is actually backwards. Children learn how

to treat their younger siblings based on how they have learned to

treat their friends.

Additionally, children relate to friends very differently than they do to

their parents. Other children do not typically respond to a child’s

complaints about being hungry or tired or having a scrape on their

knee. Parents respond readily to these complaints without the child

having to do much to earn it. But with friends, they must learn and

apply social skills to illicit the desired response.

CONCLUSIONS

The key to improving sibling relationships may be to teach our

children to treat their siblings more like friends. This means that bad

behavior comes with a cost more like that in a friend relationship

(losing the playmate) than in a sibling relationship (a scolding or a

time out). If children value their sibling’s company, as most do, then

the realistic prospect of losing the opportunity to enjoy that company

because of bad behavior may create an new incentive to treat their

siblings better.

*My mother-in-law did this with her 9 children and it seems to have

worked wonderfully: If siblings weren’t going to play nicely together

then they didn’t get to play together at all. If they started fighting, she

would send one to play in one room and the other to another.

Playing with a sibling was a privilege, not a right, and they had to

earn it and preserve it, just as with a friendship.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why teenagers’ brains are wired like drug-addicts’

brains.

• Why being lax about rules doesn’t get your teen to trust you more or to be more honest about their lives.

• Why teen conflict with parents is good for teens but creates serious distress for parents.

Most parents would probably be shocked at how much their teens lie to them and

how many things they lie about. They would probably be equally shocked to learn

that teens want their parents to have rules and expectations for them, and even to

punish them from time to time for breaking family rules. But parents today are going

about the problem of teen rebellion all wrong, and may actually be making things

worse by trying to get their teens to be honest with them about their private lives.

THE STUDY

A researcher in Florida tasked a number of young college students to recruit and interview

local teens for a study on teen behavior. They wanted to make sure they got the “cool kids”

and not just the “goodie-goodies” who would sign-up or volunteer if they showed up at the

school offering extra credit for participation. So they went to the local mall and offered a gift

card to a music store for participation, and interviewed kids over fries and a drink at a

restaurant. In the end, the researchers had interviewed over 600 Florida teenagers from all

along the social spectrum.

They gave the teenagers 36 cards, each with a topic that teenagers were thought likely to

lie about to their parents. They had the teenagers go through the cards, say which topics

they lied about and how often, as well as how they lied. This is what they found…

THE RESULTS

The researchers reported that

at the conclusion of the

interview, many of the

teenagers seemed very

uncomfortable as they realized

how often and how extensively

they were lying to their parents

and how many family rules

they were actually breaking.

Of the 36 topics studied, the

average teen lies about 12 of

them:

○ How they spend their

allowance;

○ Whether they’ve started dating;

○ Drinking;

○ Drug use;

○ What movies they go to;

○ Who they hang out with;

○ Whether they are hanging out

with people their parents

disapprove of;

○ How they spend their

afternoons;

○ Whether a chaperone was at a

party;

○ Whether they rode in a car

driven by a drunk teen;

○ Whether their homework is

done;

○ What music they listen to

Drinking, drug use, and sexual behavior are the things teens lie most

about to their parents. But the researchers also found that being

asked about these things was very upsetting to teens and felt very

“emotionally intrusive” to them, especially questions about dating. It

seems that some of the most natural questions for parents—such as

“Do you love this person?”—are just not questions teens want, or

even feel the obligation, to answer. For teens, some things just feel

like they should be none of their parents’ business.

Teenage lying behaviors seemed to break down like this:

○ 25% = Outright lies, typically concocted to cover the worst behaviors.

○ 50% = Withholding/omitting the upsetting details of events from parents.

○ 25% = Just not saying anything and hoping the parent doesn’t ask.

96% of teens in the study admitted lying to their parents, and being

an honors student or a highly-scheduled teen made little different.

Apparently, no kid is too busy to break a few rules.

The researches supposed that the most common reason teens would give for

lying would be to stay out of trouble. What they found was that the reason most

teens gave for lying was to preserve the relationship with their parents and keep

from disappointing them.

THE SECOND STUDY – The Parents’ Perspective

The researchers mailed surveys to the parents of the participating teens to look

at their side of the experience. Most parents expressed a vivid fear of pushing

their teens into outright rebellion. Many parents expressed the belief that the

best way to get their teens to be honest with them was to be more permissive

and not set hard and fast rules. These parents seemed to be imagining some

kind of trade-off between being strict and being informed.

WRONG: The researchers found that permissive parents don’t actually learn

more about their teens, and that the teens who go the most wild usually come

from the most permissive parents.

Teens do not see permissiveness the same way parents do: They see it

more as a sign of a parent not caring about the choices they are making and that

the parent doesn’t actually want the job of being the parent at all.

International Replication of Results

This research has been duplicated in The Philippines, Chile, and

Italy. In Chile permissive parenting was the norm, but teenagers

there lied to their parents more than anywhere else. It seems that

the notion of strictness driving teens to rebellion is—at least

statistically—a myth that just doesn’t show up with any regularity. In

fact, it seems that most of the “strict” parents may have a lot of rules,

but they don’t tend to enforce them very well because it is so much

work.

MORE RESULTS

Another survey found that while 78% of parents believe their teen

feels comfortable talking to them “about anything,” teens disagree.

Teens report feeling that coming to a parent for help undermines the

independent identity they are working so hard to establish.

Confessing a need for help—voluntarily or through parental

coercion—is often seen as emasculating to the teen and a sign of

the immaturity they want desperately to overcome.

Additional research as found that the impulse for autonomy is

actually strongest around ages 14-15, and that it is actually stronger

at age 11 compared to age 18, contrary to much conventional

wisdom about patterns of teen rebellion.

Teens whose parents were the most rules-heavy and most intrusive

weren’t the most rebellious. They actually tended to be more

obedient, but they also tended to be more depressed.

Optimal Parenting to Combat Teen Deception

Ironically, the research found that the parents who were the most

warm and have the most conversations with their children were those

who had well-defined rules that were consistently enforced.

These parents established rules over certain key areas of

influence and explained to their teens the rationale for such

rules, but then left other areas to the autonomous discretion of

the teen. The teens of these types of parents tended to lie the least,

often because rather than trying to hide 12 areas from their parents

they were only hiding 5 or 6.

Teens and Boredom

This study found that many teens reported that they turned to

drinking or drugs because they were bored in their free time.

Another study aimed to discover a way to teach teens how not to be

bored.

It was found that boredom starts to set in around 7th grade and

continues to increase all the way through 12th grade. Additionally,

intrinsic motivation begins to fall and continues to fall over the same

period.

A study of 600 kids in Pennsylvania took the form of a 6-week school

class on boredom and motivation. The study found that even very

busy kids reported feeling bored, especially when they were busy

doing activities their parents had signed them up for. These children

also have greater difficulty being motivated on their own because

they were so used to having their parents fill all of their time for them.

So how do we teach kids not to be bored?

Neuroscience to the Rescue!

Teen Brains become Addict Brains

Neuroscience has found that the nucelus accumbens lights up with

dopamine whenever a person finds something exciting, interesting,

or pleasurable. In teenagers, it goes a little nutty.

THE STUDY & RESULTS: Children, teenagers, and adults were

asked to play a pirate video game while having their brains scanned

by an fMRI machine. After each round of the game the player

received a reward of: 1) a single gold coin, 2) a stack of gold coins,

or 3) a large pile of gold coins.

○ Children’s brains lit up whenever they received ANY kind of reward.

○ Adult’s brains lit up proportionally to the size of the reward they earned.

○ Teen’s brains did something else altogether: When they received the

small or medium reward, their brains actually dropped BELOW baseline

levels of stimulation, signaling disappointment. But when they received

the large pile of coins, their brains lit up even more than the children’s or

adults’ brains.

CONCLUSIONS: The researched drew a parallel between the teen brain’s

response and that of the brain of a seasoned drug addict: The pleasure center in

the brains of both is depressed unless it receives a large enough dose of

stimulation. Anything short of the necessary threshold fails to excite, engage, or

reward them.

In addition, the researcher found decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex while

the teens were experiencing reward sensations. This area of the brain is involved

in the evaluation of risk vs. reward, as well as judgment and decision making.

○ What this means is that teens are able to weigh risks vs. rewards the same as adults

UNLESS they are actually experiencing risk, excitement, or pleasure. In other words, teens

are just as rational as adults when talking about abstract situations, but when they are

actually IN the situations, teen brains get hijacked by the pleasure center and rational

decision making processes get pushed aside.

However, not all teen brains are wired the same. Another test of how much teens

would enjoy a variety of risky behaviors found that their responses typically

mirrored their brain activity during the pirate game, with teens whose brains spiked

the most when winning expressing the most interest in risky behaviors.

Additional research on risk-taking behavior has found that teens show a lower number of dopamine

receptors in their brains, indicating a lower sensitivity to mild and moderate levels of excitement. At

the same time they also show higher levels of oxytocin, which has been linked to increased

sensitivity to peer attitudes and peer pressure.

ANOTHER STUDY: Adults and teens were asked if a given task was a good or bad

idea while in an fMRI scanner. The good idea questions were mundane, like “eating

a salad” or “walking the dog.” The bad ideas, by contrast, were graphic, such as

“biting a light bulb” or “chewing a cockroach.”

RESULTS: The adults and teens answered almost identically, but their brains reacted very

differently. Adult brains showed immediate fear and pain responses, while teen brains activated

their thinking and decision making centers instead. The teen brain had to think through the idea

abstractly and draw a final conclusion based on thinking and reasoning. The adult brains, by

contrast, had reflexive responses based on broader past experience that had over time become

hard-wired into their brains and was quickly factored into the evaluation. In other words, teen

brains lack the experiential resources necessary to have “feeling reflexes” the way adult brains do,

even though they are able to reason abstractly just as well as adult brains.

THE FOLLOW-UP: A later study found that teen brains do have SOME

“feeling reflexes,” but only for certain stimuli. While biting on a light bulb

does not produce these reactions in teen brains, the thought of having

their private opinions or desires revealed to their peers produced the

same instant fear and pain reflex as the adult brains when asked about

biting a light bulb.

This is the contradiction of the teen brain in a nutshell: Their brain has

no fear of jumping off a roof, but is horrified at the prospect of calling a

girl for a date.

The Teenage Years of “Storm and Stress” (But For Whom?)

The teenage years have been referred to as a period of “storm and

stress.” But new research is revealing some interesting facts about who

experiences what during the teen years.

Honesty vs. Lying vs. Arguing

○ Most parents feel the opposite of honesty is lying. But teens feel that, at least

for their relationship with their parents, arguing is the opposite of lying, and

that honesty and arguing go hand-in-hand. In other words, teens often lie to

their parents about rule-breaking or rules they plan to break in order to avoid

an argument, because telling the truth leads to arguing and seldom results in

the parent changing the rule. They would rather just pretend to agree and

then lie about their rule-breaking to avoid a fruitless confrontation.

Studies on teen relationships with their parents have found that the best

adjusted teens have a “moderate amount” of conflict with their parents,

while those who have “very little” or “a lot” are less well adjusted.

Let’s look a little closer at that well-adjusted level of conflict…

THE STUDY: 50 pairs of mothers and their teen daughters were interviewed about their mother-daughter conflicts. The researchers found that 46% of the mothers rated their arguments and

disagreements with their daughters as distressing, destructive, and

disrespectful. The more frequent and intense the arguments were the more

destructive the mothers rated them to be.

However, only 23% of the daughters rated their arguments with their mothers

as destructive. The majority felt that the arguments actually strengthened

their relationship with their mothers. Additionally, the way that the daughters

described the clashes to the researchers were much more sophisticated

than they had anticipated they would be: The teens described arguing as a

chance to see their parents in a new way as a result of hearing their

mother’s point of view being articulated explicitly. To teens, the intensity of

the fight didn’t seem to bother them, only the resolution: The teens needed

to feel that their arguments were being heard and, when appropriate, that

their parents would budge. The daughters needed to feel they could win

some arguments and gain some concessions from others.

The daughters who rated the arguments as most destructive had parents who

stonewalled and refused any hearing or concessions. The teens reported that even

winning tiny concessions can make them feel that the argument ended well.

○ Example: One daughter told about how she had wanted a tattoo that her mom forbade her from

getting. However, the mother then allowed her to buy a pair of crazy shoes that she had

previously denied her.

CONCLUSIONS: Parents with unbending rules make it a necessity for kids

to find a way around them rather than trying to find a compromise or

alternative agreement. Parents who never allow compromises with

their children, no matter how valid the arguments, lose legitimacy as

rule-makers in the eyes of their children.

The stereotype of the teenage years being a time of “storm and stress” comes from an

early study that over-sampled mentally troubled teens. A 1976 study of average

teenagers found that 75% reported that their teen years were “happy.” However,

because the teen years are when children start to argue with and challenge parents,

and because parents are much more disturbed and distressed by this than the teens,

these years can become a time of “storm and stress,” but more often for the parents.

• In this section we will discuss: • Why self-control may be the missing component in

unlocking children’s cognitive potential

• Various ways in which self-control can be taught, and the wonderful results of such teaching

• Why self-control may be a solution to much of modern problem behavior in school kids

Good Intentions vs. Good Ideas

D.A.R.E. was designed by the LAPD to help kids learn the real-life

consequences of drug and alcohol abuse. It became wildly popular

and is in 80% of all US school districts. Parents and teachers alike

rate the program very positively and believe it to be very effective.

○ Unfortunately, multiple studies of its effectiveness find only minor short-

term reductions in cigarette use and NO reductions of ANY KIND over the

long term.

Of the 718 drug abuse prevention programs that receive federal

support, only 41 of them showed any significant positive effects (or <

6%).

The Tools Program

Unlike D.A.R.E., it has none of the common-sense, gut-instinct

appeal, and yet the results are hard to argue with. Here’s a rundown

on what makes Tools so effective at training children to succeed in

school…

Fire Station

Preschool and Kindergarten children play a game called fire station, but they play it

differently from most schools. Children choose which of the four stations they want to

play at and then write out a play plan to share with their teacher. Even 3-year-olds

write out something to the best of their ability (often little more than lines on a paper).

They then play continuously for a full 45 minutes. If the children get bored or start

fussing, the teacher asks them “is that in your play plan?”

At the end of play time, the teacher puts on music for the clean up song but does not

give any kind of instructions. The children must learn to time their actions so that they

are finished cleaning up by the time the music runs out so that they are not still

working when everyone else is done. It does not take long before the children learn

how to do this all on their own. They are learning self regulation.

Buddy Reading

Children are teamed up with a partner and one receives a large drawing of lips while

the other receives a large drawing of ears. The one given the lips flips through a

picture book and tells stories about the pictures to the other who listens quietly and

waits for their opportunity at the end to ask questions or make a comment. Then they

switch pictures and roles and repeat.

Self-Control Games

Children play games like “Simon Says,” which require children to exercise self-control

and restraint in order to succeed. In one version the teacher plays music and has the

children draw spirals and shapes. The teacher periodically pauses the music and the

children must learn to stop drawing until the teacher resumes the music.

But Does It Work?

The first large sample experiment with the program found that children’s test scores

improved a full grade-level above those of their peers who received the standard

curriculum. In other words, the tools curriculum produced two-years of proficiency in

one compared to the standard curriculum. Additionally, at the kindergarten grade level

only 50% of children score as proficient in standard classrooms. In tools classrooms,

the rate is 98%.

The New Jersey Test

7 classrooms were assigned the tools curriculum, and 7 the standard, and then

students and teachers were randomly assigned to one or the other. After one year the

tools students scored significantly higher on 7 of 8 measures, but the real difference

was in student behavior. Teachers in the control classrooms reported extremely

disruptive behavior almost every day, but teachers from the tools classrooms never

gave such reports.

The study was supposed to last two years, but after the first year the principal decided

it was “unethical” to not switch the whole school to what was proving to be an

obviously superior curriculum. This also happened in two other test schools.

But Why Does it Work?

Immersion & Purpose

○ A famous Russian study from the 1950s looked at sustained attention in children. One group was

asked to stand still for as long as they could; they lasted about 2 minutes on average. Another group

was asked to pretend they were soldiers on duty who had to stand still at their posts. These children

lasted 11 minutes on average. It was concluded that the opportunity for immersion and purpose was a

key difference in the outcomes of this study, and of the Tools version of fire house.

Self Talk & Abstract Thinking

○ This is a primary difference between how children and adults think, and is a key to sustained attention.

Expecting children to easily grasp abstract concepts, such as the phonic symbol system we call the

“Alphabet” is unrealistic given children’s cognitive maturity. However, if children can make concrete

connections to those abstract concepts, they have much more success. This is where encouraging

“self-talk” is important: When Tools classes are learning the alphabet, the children are encouraged to

talk themselves through what they are doing as they practice writing the alphabet. This externalization

of internal thought process helps make connections between the concrete and the abstract. Telling

themselves out loud how to write a “B” helps them concentrate and persist through distractions and

frustrations. This principle is also employed in the written-out (externalized) play plans in fire house.

But Why Does it Work? (Cont.)

Self Analysis

○ Children who are right often know why they are right, but children who are wrong are often

unsure as to why. To help children think more critically about their answers and understand

why they are right or wrong, Tools teachers write four different versions of a letter on the board

and ask the kids to choose which one is “best.” They then take turns grading one another’s

practice letters and circling the one’s they think are “best.”. This helps children learn self-

analysis (i.e. what makes a good “B” vs. a not-so-good “B”) and helps them learn to consistently

and confidently identify what makes a correct vs. and incorrect letter.

Impulse Control

○ Games like “Simon Says” help children learn to control their own impulses in order to follow the

leader. Buddy reading also helps children with impulse control as each child always wants to

read first but must learn to take their turn listening first and waiting for their turn to read. The

results of learning these impulse control behaviors are dramatic. For example, a Penn State

Study found that children who scored high on both intelligence AND executive functioning (i.e.

self-control) were 300% more likely to do well in math class compared to kids who scored well

only on intelligence.

APPLICATION

One of the authors also runs a tutoring program and she changed it

to reflect the principles from the Tools program.

○ When students arrive she has them make a written plan for how they will

use their 2 hours of tutoring.

○ If they get stuck or lose focus she refers them back to their own plan

rather than correcting them herself, giving them the responsibility to plan

their actions and work through frustrations and setbacks.

○ Rather than correcting their work herself she points to the line where she

found an error and then makes the students identify and correct it.

○ With children who are just learning to write, she has them practice using

self-talk to coach themselves through the process.

With her own children she…

○ Practices buddy reading at night where she takes turns reading and

listening to stories with her children.

○ On weekends she will often have her children make written play plans.

• In this section we will discuss: • What non-traditional, “Progressive” Parenting’s one

critical flaw is (which it ironically shares with Negligent Parenting)

• Why non-violent children’s TV programs may inadvertently be teaching relational & verbal aggression

• When spanking works, and when it doesn’t

Children’s Media Consumption and Aggressive Behavior

Researchers developed a long-term study of young children’s media

consumption on their levels of aggression. Unsurprisingly, the

researchers found that there was a positive relationship between the

amount of violent television a child watched and their level of

physical aggression. On the other hand, children who watched

mostly educational shows exhibited much higher levels of relational

aggression: These children were increasingly bossy, controlling, and

manipulative. In fact, the effect size of the educational shows on

relational aggression was even higher than that of violent shows on

physical aggression.

They looked more closely at the content of these educational shows

and found that they often spent most of their time establishing a

conflict between characters and only a few minutes resolving it.

They concluded that young children have a hard time connecting the

conflict to the resolution and learn more from each depicted behavior

in isolation and in equal measure.

Children’s Media Consumption and Aggressive Behavior

Follow-up studies confirmed that while watching violent programming

did increase physical aggression, but so did watching educational

programming, and the effect was small for both. They also confirmed

that educational programs were surprisingly effective at increasing

relational aggression among children: The effect size for this

relationship was 2.5x as large as for violent TV/physical aggression.

A related study looked at 471 children’s TV shows and found a

surprising amount of relational and verbal aggression on display.

96% of all shows contained insults or put downs with an average of 7

per half hour. Even more surprising was how this behavior was

treated in the shows: In the more than 2,500 incidents documented,

only 50 cases showed the character who made the insult being

reprimanded or punished, and none of these were from educational

shows. In 84% of cases involving put downs or insults there was

either no response or laughter.

Sometimes “educational” means more than we intend!

Why is modern, highly-involved, progressive parenting failing to create

a nation of well-behaved children?

For a long time the assumption has been that aggression results primarily from a

poor home environment. But aggression is so prevalent that this explanation

hardly satisfies.

Aggression in the Home

Most people instinctively believe that it is bad for children to see their parents

fight. But research has found that almost all children see their parents fight from

time to time, and especially about mundane topics like who forgot to pick up the

dry cleaning.

One study asked couples to document every time they fought, no matter how

small, and found that couples were fighting on average 7 times per day. The

study also found that children were witnessing their parents being angry with

each other 3-4x as often as they witnessed expressions of affection. While

parents try diligently to shield their children from angry exchanges, children are

witnessing about 45% of fights.

Aggression in the Home (cont.)

Studies have shown that children are highly attuned to the quality of

their parents’ relationship, and that a child’s perception of their

parents’ relationship has a greater affect on the child’s happiness

than the quality of the parent’s relationship with the child him/herself.

STUDY

Children were shown a videotape of two adults (sometimes including

one of their parents) in an argument. 33% of children reacted

aggressively after watching the argument: They screamed, yelled, or

punched a pillow. But one variable was found to eliminate an

aggressive reaction 96% of the time. This variable was whether or

not the child witnessed the adults positively resolve the argument.

Even when the researchers varied the intensity of the arguments it

made little difference as long as it ended well. In most cases the

children reported being just as happy after witnessing the argument

and resolution as children in a control group who watched a video of

adults interacting in a friendly manner.

Aggression in the Home (cont.)

Another study found that some exposure to marital conflict can

actually help children so long as: 1) intensity is not too high, 2) insults

are avoided, and 3) the conflicts are resolved with affection. Children

exposed to these types of conflicts were reported to exhibit more

prosocial behavior by their teachers and tested as having improved

feelings of stability over time.

CONCLUSION: These and other findings show that parents who

pause mid-argument to “take things upstairs” in an attempt to spare

the children may actually be making things worse. Parents serve as

models for their children to learn conflict resolution, compromise, and

working through differences. If they are deprived of seeing their

parents achieve positive outcomes to conflicts, as well as the

process for such achievement, those valuable lessons are lost.

The Spanking Question

Corporal Punishment

For years, studies have been piling up that show a positive

correlation between the frequency of corporal punishment and

increased aggressive behavior in children. These studies controlled

for the fact that out-of-control children get spanked more often by

establishing baseline behaviors, thereby isolating a separate

“spanking effect.”

The scientific community wanted to condemn spanking as broadly

and universally as possible, but these studies had one glaring

limitation for this purpose: They had almost all been done exclusively

on Caucasian parents and children. So they commissioned a study

that sampled 50% Caucasians and 50% African Americans to

achieve their aim. They studied 450 kids over the course of 10 years

and found some compelling data. But what they found was not what

the scientific community had wanted…

Corporal Punishment (cont.) RESULTS: The study confirmed the prior findings for the Caucasian sub

set. But for the African American sub set it found that the use of corporal

punishment was more frequent (but not by much), but EVEN WORSE, it

found that there was a reverse correlation between corporal punishment

and aggression in black children. In other words, the more black

children were spanked the LESS aggression they showed.

○ People freaked out. So the cooler heads commissioned a series of

international studies to better understand the findings.

RESULTS: The effect that spanking has on children is a function of how

it is viewed culturally. If spanking is accepted then it becomes a normal

form of punishment. If, however, it is viewed as abnormal and

unacceptable, then it’s use on the child carries with it labels and stigma

for the child and their behavior. For many Caucasians, the spanking

“taboo” makes being spanked a traumatic experience for a child. This

unspoken punishment, they perceive, is reserved for only the most

heinous offenders. They feel they’ve lost their place in accepted society.

Corporal Punishment (cont.)

STUDY: Another study of a sub set of Caucasians—conservative,

Protestants—found no negative side-effects to spanking, even

though some parents were spanking their children 3-4x per week!

The researchers concluded that because the parents viewed the

punishment as normal, so did the children. It carried no stigma.

○ The researchers also concluded that the oversimplified view of aggression

leads parents to actually make things worse even when they are trying to

do the right thing by not spanking except in extreme circumstances.

Children cue off of their parents: The parents’ perceptions of what are

normal punishments are the foundation for children’s perceptions.

The Bully Problem

If a certain degree of parental conflict can be good for children, what about peer

conflict? Are over-involved parents robbing their children of important opportunities

to learn from life’s ups-and-downs? Or inadvertently causing even worse problems.

The Bully Problem and “Zero Tolerance”

There is no evidence that bullying is on the rise, but parental concern

about bullying has increased dramatically. Most scholars agree that

bullying can have serious negative effects, but many have balked at

the extreme “zero tolerance” policies many adults are working to put

in place to protect their children and students.

○ Children’s brains are far from fully developed, and zero tolerance policies

leave no room for honest mistakes or lapses in their better judgment.

Scholars have warned parents and school administrators that zero

tolerance policies may backfire, causing children to be more worried

about a severe and seemingly arbitrary authority than whatever

problem the policy attempts to address.

○ One study of such policies found that anxiety levels among students had

risen, not fallen, after a zero tolerance bullying policy had been enacted.

Children were now more afraid of breaking the rules, especially by

accident, and being severely punished than they were of being bullied.

The Bully Problem and Relational Aggression

One of the biggest problems with lumping all

aggressive social behavior under the title

“bullying” is that most bullying is actually done by

kids who are popular, well-liked, and admired.

A widespread assumption that has long obscured

this fact is that researchers assume that bad

behavior is linked to bad outcomes. Therefore,

there seemed to be no need to study bad

behavior from smart or popular kids. However,

studies began finding that popular kids were at

higher risk of alcohol and drug abuse, so it didn’t

take long before they also found links between

popularity and aggression as well.

The Bully Problem Girls vs. Boys: Another study compiled gender-specific data on

aggression and found that—contrary to conventional wisdom—girls are

just as aggressive as boys, but they are more likely to use non-physical

forms of aggression (relational, verbal).

Good vs. Bad Kids: Another study found that even at elementary school

age, non-aggressive kids engage in the same problem behaviors as

aggressive kids, only less frequently. The conclusion was that non-

aggressive kids are less aggressive only because they lack the

confidence or assertiveness to exert themselves as often.

Motivation: Researchers have concluded that most aggressive behavior

in children is motivated by a desire to express dominance or to protect

status. Aggression is therefore not a breakdown of social rules nor a

lapse of social skills, but in many cases a highly skilled and savvy act of

jockeying or manipulation. In other words, aggressive kids are not

socially deviant and are often highly sensitive to the feelings of others—

they just use that information in the pursuit of their own goals.

The REAL Bullying Problem

The Seduction of Bullying: Parents whose children begin

experimenting with aggression often face an uphill battle when trying

to teach their children not to behave in those ways. The rewards that

bullies receive from their peers are often immediate and powerful!

Children know the behaviors are wrong because their parents tell

them so, but they use them anyway because among other kids they

result in status, admiration, and influence. So why don’t children shun

aggressive peers? And why are so many aggressive children popular and

central to children’s social networks?

○ 1) Aggression, like many forms of rule-breaking, is seen as a willingness

to defy grown-up authority and makes the aggressive child appear more

independent and “older” than other children. To children, these are both

highly desirable traits. Children who are always obedient to adult

authority and direction run the risk of being perceived as “whimps.”

○ 2) …Is a little more complicated (and interesting)…

The REAL Bullying Problem

Research has found that the majority of prosocial AND antisocial behavior comes

from THE SAME children. They conclude that these children understand that

kindness and aggression are two equally powerful tools of social control.

Children who learn to master the balance between these two skills become liked

and admired by just about everybody. Additional research has found that about

1/6 of children meet this description, termed “bi-strategic controllers.” They have

been found to use unsettling amounts of aggression to get their way, and yet are

socially skilled enough that they don’t run the same risks of punishment for their

aggression as children who are less prosocial. Because these children are so

successful later in life researchers have a hard time getting money to fund

research on them.

CONCLUSION: The average teen today spends 60 hours a week surrounded by

peers compared to only 16 hours surrounded by adults. The more time we

schedule our children outside the home and in peer group activities as a way to

protect them from peer rejection or isolation has led to large numbers of teens

learning social behavior from their peers rather than their parents.

Traditional vs. Progressive vs.

Disengaged – Three Types of Dads

The Dad Competition

A study of the three types of parenting initially found that progressive

dads outperformed the other two types (traditional and disengaged)

in almost every measurable way. Progressive dads were:

○ More proactively engaged in parenting (without the direction of the wife)

○ More involved with the children’s education and spent more time with

them on homework

○ More likely to stay home from work with a sick child

BUT…

○ They rated their marital quality lower

○ They rated their family functioning lower

One explanation for this is that the father’s greater degree of

involvement lead to increased conflict and disagreement with their

spouse and that this, in turn, had negative effects on the children.

The Dad Competition (cont.)

Additionally, it was found that progressive dads were less consistent about

discipline strategies, establishing rules, and enforcing them. Progressive fathers

were also found to feel more unsure about their abilities to discipline their

children. Researchers hypothesized that this could be because progressive

dads know what NOT to do, but they don’t know what they SHOULD do. In fact,

some progressive fathers seemed not to recognize the need for discipline and

expected that their child would just model their warm, affectionate, understanding

example. They also tended to find disciplining their children acutely

embarrassing, which only served to aggravate their problems with consistency in

discipline: They always seem to be trying something new and caving at the

wrong times. This combination of factors led to a surprising finding: The children

of progressive dads were as aggressive and had almost as many behavior

problems as the children of disengaged fathers.

CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that while modern, progressive co-

parents excel in many areas, in the discipline department they seem to

have a natural weakness.

The often counter-intuitive findings in this book reveal an important truth…

There is a treasure trove of knowledge about children that is there

for the taking as soon as adults can drop two interfering

assumptions:

1) That things work the same in children as they do in adults.

○ “The Fallacy of Similar Effect”

2) That positive traits necessarily oppose and/or ward off negative

behaviors in children.

○ “The Fallacy of the Good/Bad Dichotomy”

○ Adults seem to have the tendency to think of things as being either good

or bad for children, but the reality is much more complicated. As this

book has shown, many traits that adults think of as contradictory—such

as popularity and aggression—are actually orthogonal, which is a fancy

way of saying mutually independent.

While reading NurtureShock I was particularly struck by the findings on self-control and the different parenting styles as they related to discipline and child behavior. I personally feel very strongly about the importance of discipline in parenting and the findings discussed in this book as well as passages from two other books I read recently came together to help me develop what I have come to refer to as my “Caveman Theory” of parenting. It goes a little something like this…

“Physiologically, we are virtually

identical to our ancestors who painted

images of bison on the walls of the

Lascaux cave in France…Our brains

are no larger nor more sophisticated

than theirs. If one of their babies were

to be dropped into the arms of an

adoptive parent in 21st century New

York the child would likely grow up

indistinguishable from his or her

peers. All that differentiates us from

them is our [cultural] memories.” Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and

Science of Remembering Everything (2011) by

Joshua Foer

“To early thinkers the existence of a [state numbering a hundred

thousand people seemed impossible]. Even Aristotle…believed that

order among men could extend only so far as the voice of a herald

could reach….Such beliefs are understandable, for man’s instincts,

which were fully developed long before Aristotle’s time, were not

made for the kinds of surroundings, and for the numbers, in which he

now lives…What are chiefly responsible for having generated

[modern civilization]…are the rules of human conduct that gradually

evolved (especially those dealing with…property, honesty,

contract…and privacy). These rules are handed on by tradition,

teaching and imitation, rather than by instinct, and largely consist of

prohibitions (‘shalt not’s’)…Mankind achieved civilisation by

developing and learning to follow rules that often forbade him to do

what his instincts demanded…”

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988) by F. A. Hayek

So putting it all together now, this is my theory: Children today are born with the same default instincts as our

caveman ancestors 10,000 years ago.

Unless they are taught, or rather trained, to behave otherwise, their default behavior will be akin to that of the caveman.

Caveman behavior is incompatible with modern civilization.

Parents who fail to train their children to restrain and replace their caveman instincts will find that their children grow up to be cavemen.

What happens to cavemen in modern society? Their behavior gets them into never ending trouble that leads to expulsion, jail, prison, or death.

Teaching self-discipline and self-restraint is essential for training our children to overcome their caveman instincts. This is why the progressive parent—who gives their child everything BUT discipline—fails. The caveman instincts will prevail unless they are vigilantly countered and ultimately supplanted.

Black Phantoms There’s a game I play with my son on the PS3 called Demon’s

Souls. It’s a swords and sorcery type game with some interesting twists. Primarily, the worse you do at the game the harder it gets (i.e. enemies become stronger, your health bar is decreased, etc.). If you do really badly then something even worse happens: Black Phantoms appear. Some of these are evil versions of otherwise helpful characters that appear in the game to give you aid. Their Black Phantom forms, however, replace their former, helpful forms and try to kill you. Some even show up at the very beginning of a level and will not let you progress until you defeat them. And when you play online, other players can invade your game as Black Phantom versions of themselves to hunt you down, kill you, and steal your collection of souls (the game’s currency).

I drew some parallels between the principles governing this diabolically difficult game and diabolically difficult parenting: 1) The worse you do at parenting the harder it gets. If you don’t, as my

mother-in-law advises, “Teach your kids to mind you while they’re young,” it becomes infinitely more difficult to establish parental authority—and anything else for that matter—once they get older.

2) Just as your game of Demon’s Souls can be invaded by the malevolent Black Phantom of another player, so too can our game of parenting be invaded by third party Black Phantoms. I’m thinking primarily of the powerful influence bad friends can have on our children.

3) As with parenting, destroying especially powerful Black Phantoms in the game actually makes the game easier, rewarding you for overcoming a particularly difficult challenge. But fear not, let your guard down and start doing poorly again, and the Black Phantoms return.

4) Our children, if we fail to fulfill our obligations as parents, can become Black Phantoms: fallen versions of the people they might have been. These Phantoms will haunt and hinder us endlessly and will serve as a tragic reminder of what might have been had we been more vigilant.

“Some mothers in today’s world feel

‘cumbered’ by home duties and are

thus attracted by other more

‘romantic’ challenges. Such women

could make the same error of

perspective that Martha made. The

woman, for instance, who deserts

the cradle in order to help defend

civilization against the barbarians

may well later meet, among the

barbarians, her own neglected

child.”

(The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book, p. 219)

Neal A. Maxwell

My wife and I read a book about how to detect and avoid threats to your children’s safety called Protecting the Gift (2000) by Gavin De Becker. It provided a number of insightful parenting tips, some of which I thought fit well with this presentation. The first principle relates to both my “Caveman Theory” and

my “Black Phantom” analogy. He shares a story about unruly teenage elephants who, in the absence of a dominant male presence, became uncharacteristically violent. My interpretation is that they were acting on “cave-elephant” instinct due to a lack of guidance, training, and discipline from a mature, adult male. He also recounts a tragic story about two boys. One was withdrawn and quiet, the other withdrawn and angry—a Black Phantom. The latter “invaded” the life of the former and in the end, a tragic mixture of testosterone, anger, and immaturity destroyed both of their lives. The following is quoted from Protecting the Gift (pp. 238-240):

“The key that unlocks a boy’s destructiveness is often held by another boy. While it’s a characteristic of the species that males can be particularly aggressive, aggression needn’t evolve into violence. Michael Gurian points out that ‘Violence is not hard-wired into boys. Aggression is hard-wired. Violence is taught.’

“Mustn’t it be then that nonviolence can also be taught? It can, indeed, and most effectively by fathers. Unfortunately, fathers are undervalued in America—virtually to the point of being an oppressed minority. That poses a problem for everyone, since the absence of a father in a boy’s life is one of the predictors of future violence. David Blakenhorn, author of Fatherless America, notes that 80 percent of the young men in juvenile detention facilities were raised without fully participating fathers. While I’ve directed much of this book toward mothers, it is fathers who can most favorably influence a boy’s behavior.

“Without fathers (or other men in the paternal role, such as step-fathers, grandfathers, mentors), too many boys learn from the media or from each other what scholars call “protest masculinity,” characterized by toughness and the use of force. That is not the only way to be a man, of course, but it’s the only way they know.

“The absence of adult males upsets the natural order in our species and in others. For example, game wardens in South Africa recently had to kill several teenage male elephants that had uncharacteristically become violent. These young elephants behaved like a contemporary street gang—and perhaps for the same reason: There were no adult males in their lives. To solve the problem, park officials imported adult male elephants from outside the area. Almost immediately, the remaining juveniles stopped misbehaving. Testosterone ungoverned by experience is dangerous, and older males temper the craving for dominance—merely by being dominant themselves.

“...Some men, of course, choose to abandon their children, but between divorce, court decisions, and outright discrimination, many are pushed away from their sons, leaving impressionable boys in search of role models. That’s when a friend like James is most dangerous to a boy like Ray.”

There are several other fascinating parts of Protecting The Gift that are too long to quote in full here, so I recommend the entire book to you along with the following summaries and excerpts:

Stranger Kidnapping – Not Worth The Worry Parents’ #1 fear is that their child will be kidnapped by a stranger.

But a child is 25,000 times more likely to drown in a swimming pool than be kidnapped by a stranger. Out of 70,000,000 children in America, only 100/year are provably kidnapped by strangers. A child is more likely to suffer a childhood heart attack (something most parents rightly never even think about) than be kidnapped by a stranger. The vast majority of child kidnappings are done by people known to the child, and most of those involve divorce or unwed parents. Stranger kidnapping is just not something human beings do that often. But the idea is so upsetting that parents worry about it almost to the exclusion of the infinitely more likely danger of their child being molested or abused by someone known to the family.

Persuasion Predators vs. Power Predators Persuasion Predators are those who carefully lure a child to an

area where the predator has privacy and control. Power Predators simply seek to overpower their targets with force. Persuasion Predators vastly outnumber Power Predators because Power Predation is extremely risky in today’s world. Most predators seek to work their way into the social circle of their target through persuasion, charm, and other devices in order to create opportunities for privacy and control over their target. It is this type of predator that is the most likely threat, and the vast majority are well-known to the parents of the targeted child.

Fear vs. Worry “True fears and unwarranted fears may at times feel the same, but

you can tell them apart. True fear is a gift that signals us in the presence of danger; thus, it will be based upon something you perceive in your environment or your circumstance. Unwarranted fear or worry will always be based upon something in your imagination or your memory…

Fear vs. Worry (cont.) “Worry is the fear we manufacture; it is a choice. Conversely, true fear is

involuntary; it will come and get our attention if necessary. But, if a parent or a child feels fear constantly, there is no signal left for when it’s really needed. Thus, the parent who chooses to worry all the time or who invests unwarranted fears into children is actually making them less safe. Worry is not a precaution; it is the opposite because it delays and discourages constructive action.

“...Because we choose what to worry about...worry may well be distracting you from something important. For example, we worry about the child molester we saw arrested on the news even though we (and the police and the newspeople) know who he is, what he looks like, and where he is—in jail, for God’s sake. At the same time, we choose not to think about the man at the day-care center who gives us the creeps.

“How can you decide which impulses to explore and which to ignore? By learning how you communicate with yourself. When you honor accurate intuitive signals and evaluate them without denial (believing that either the favorable or the unfavorable outcome is possible), you will come to trust that you’ll be notified if there is something worthy of your attention. Fear will gain credibility because it won’t be applied wastefully. Thus, trusting intuition is the exact opposite of living in fear.” (pp. 54-55)

You Are Momma Grizzly “When it comes to protecting children from violence, most

worries are balanced by a primal feeling of power that comes to new mothers. Again, it is Eve who explains it:

‘After my daughter was born, the love I felt for her was so intense, so beyond anything I had ever imagined, that I knew I would not allow any harm to come to her. This made me feel, well, dangerous. If someone hurt her, or even tried to, I knew I would take justice into my own hand.’

“Eve’s feeling of power after the birth of her daughter is more than just a feeling—it is a real power. Particularly for women raised to believe they are not able to protect themselves, motherhood gives permission to be dangerous. It connects women to a power they might not ever have felt before: It is the power of violence, a power known to most men. Eve, an otherwise peaceful woman, was expressing her willingness to kill another person if the need arose. I encourage women with children to seize and not retreat from this intimate understanding of violence. Doing so can bring relief from a lifetime’s worry about your own vulnerability.” (p. 51)

Ellen Ripley,

adoptive Momma

Grizzly