Don’t let the cement dry!

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Before you read this essay, take five minutes to do a little experiment. Watch this You Tube video:

Promoting cognitive development.

Have you heard about the Gorilla that went missing? Yes, the now famous You Tube video of the Gorilla that walks on screen, thumps “his” chest, and exits, only to be totally overlooked by half the people who watched? How in the world can anyone miss seeing something so unusual and “obvious”? We actually see with our brains, not our eyes. If we are not expecting to see something, it can be totally “overlooked”.

The research involving the Gorilla has many interesting variations involving other errors in observation* or perception. We now know that “what you see is not what you get”. Eyewitnesses to the same events recall them very differently. Even the versions offered by the same person change over time, as the brain alters, embellishes and edits what it has “remembered”. Sometimes people and events from different times and places are incorporated into a memory that the person swears to recall with 100% certainty.

And these misperceptions or distortions were committed by adults – with IQ making no difference. So what does that say for the reality our children make of their day-to-day lives? Children whose brains are not fully developed, who are not yet capable of integrating the different parts of their lives or have the experience to draw upon to reason about the meaning of events?

Therapists and clients spend endless hours searching through the past, trying to make sense of what happened, how it felt and what it meant. What is remembered? What is reality? What was traumatic and what effect has it had? It is increasingly the case that it is our interpretation of the experience and our reaction to it that defines our reality.

The simple take-away message for parents is this – get to the child before the cement dries. Regularly asking your child about his day affords you the opportunity to be attuned to what is going on in his life, who his friends are, what he finds interesting and … what is upsetting him. An event for one child may be insignificant, while for another be traumatic. We cannot assume to know without asking. And for those events that are traumatic, what makes them so? Asking your child to explain and elaborate not only makes the process available to you, but it also calls upon him to listen to what he is saying and reflect upon it. Saying it out loud is different than letting it bounce around in his head, unedited. Just as writing reveals gaps in logic or areas left incomplete, so does the telling of his story. The causal connections and interpretations he has made that make us cringe are then available – not for criticism, but for understanding (via our curiosity).

Asking for elaboration can often allow a child to find his own dead ends in logic. Sometimes our questions of “How do you know that?” or “What did he (actually) say?” ease the process along. And when the script is totally out of control, we have the opportunity to say, “Do you want to know what I think?” or “Why don’t you ask her (what she said, meant, did)?” or “Do you really think you are a &*!# ?”. Without our help children can fail to challenge assumptions about themselves and others.

What better place for the development of logical thinking and healthy skepticism. We want our children to know for certain that there is no such thing as certainty.

Our brains are designed to jump to conclusions, to come up with immediate explanations for what has just happened. In terms of evolution, it was essential for survival. Our brains are wired to attribute causes to observations. Any good student knows that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but the saber-toothed tigers ate most of the guys who stopped to analyze their data before running. Ultimately, the slower, analytical thinking is what eventually got us off the saber-toothed tiger menu for good. Ideally, we need both the quick reacting and the slow analyzing processes.

Children are vulnerable to jumping to conclusions due to this built in quick firing brain process, but they are additionally compromised because their brains and life experiences limit their ability to do the careful slow analysis of their assumptions or conclusions.They are dependent upon adults for this sorting through and analyzing work as their cortexes continue to develop. Yet, as many adults prove, careful analysis does not come with age and capacity. We all have a built in tendency to stick with these quickly formed assumptions. Logical thinking and analysis – where assumptions are tested – must be learned. That process begins with a parent’s curiosity and requests for elaboration and explanations.

Sleep is when our brains do much of the work of converting memories to more permanent storage. Bedtime is a good time to talk. It is also a good time to get to our children’s potential certainty before the cement dries. Then, at least, when he sleeps, the annotated version of his day is going into the memory bank.

Bedtime is for reading stories, telling stories, and listening to your child’s stories. This is when they can tell you about their day, how it affected them, and what they’re concerned about. Genuine curiosity about what happened and what sense they made of it conveys caring and promotes attunement. It also brings these quickly formed conclusions out to see if they survive the “analysis” entailed in listening to themselves talk about it and explain why they believe what they have concluded.

Key Competencies: Logical thinking; communication; relatedness (engagement)

Key Words: Inattentional blindness; certainty; elaboration; listening; genuine curiosity; expectations; biases

If you thought their YouTube was interesting, wait until you read their book: The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. The implications for inattentive blindness are profound and often life threatening. You will also look both ways at an intersection, twice!

The work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky described significant biases in judgement and decision making. Regardless of intelligence level, humans make judgement errors due to built in cognitive biases or unconscious errors in reasoning. For a complete summary of what you don’t know and what you don’t know you don’t know, read Kahneman’s new book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He describes our intuitive System 1 brains as capable of drawing quick judgments and causal conclusions and our analytical System 2 brains as capable of slower, more deliberate thought. Unfortunately, System 2 not only fails to get involved enough, but when it does it is often in the service of substantiating a false assumption that originated with System 1. I do not do justice to a great book. If you are at all curious about how we think and make decisions, it is a must read. For a review, see Two Brains Running, by Jim Holt of the New York Times.

“He’s a natural born superstar”

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Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

A fixed mindset assumes that one is naturally born with talent or giftedness. A growth mindset assumes that competence is gained through hard work. A label such as “gifted” can be a curse if it leads to a lack of engagement in hard work or a reluctance to risk failure – which is an essential part of learning and growing.

If you visited a 3rd grade class for a day, do you think you could pick out the kids who will be successful in life? A kid like Anthony would jump right out at you. Anthony was the biggest, strongest, and fastest kid in 3rd grade – by far. In middle school, he had the sweetest jump shot and the quickest release I can ever recall. Even at that age, the people around him knew he was “special” – and told him so. In high school, he lived up to that label – setting a state scoring record and then breaking it the following year. Anthony was one of the most highly recruited shooting guards coming out of high school before landing at VSU. To everyone’s surprise, Anthony transferred midseason of his freshman year, unhappy with his playing time. This was not the “one-and-done” route to the NBA predicted by his uncle who was already interviewing agents on Anthony’s behalf (unofficially of course). He was welcomed with open arms by his new teammates at Tremont who nicknamed him “Lights Out” after two jaw dropping exhibitions of shooting. Ineligible to play, but free to practice with the team, he became Tremont fandom’s great hope for “next year”. Again, his uncle had him only playing one year at Tremont before jumping to the NBA. And after one year, where was Anthony? Transferring to his third basketball program in as many years. Once again, he had not gotten enough playing time. There was no doubt Anthony could shoot. On several occasions he came into games late, producing a torrent of scoring. But more often, he entered games only to play mediocre defense and fail to make passes to wide open teammates.

Anthony and his uncle held a fixed mindset about his natural talent (gifted) and future (golden). Unfortunately his coaches adhered to a growth mindset – that improvement comes from hard work. Anthony watched with contempt as less highly recruited (and less “talented”) athletes passed him by in terms of playing time. But if we asked the coach, we would hear a different story. He would paint a sharp contrast between the athlete who sought coaches’ critiques, came to the gym on his own, lifted weights all summer, and never missed an opportunity to play against better competition versus the young man who rested on his laurels and transferred every year. By transferring to a new program and blaming the coach for not playing him, Anthony could hold on to his fixed mindset belief about his “talent” or “giftedness”.

A growth mindset assumes that change is possible, regardless of what natural abilities people are born with. A boy may be well coordinated, but he still has to apply himself to become good at a sport. And regardless of how good he is at present, he can always “grow” and make himself better. A growth mindset assumes that competence is gained through hard work, while a fixed mindset assumes that natural abilities or deficits determine outcomes.

The old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a good example of a fixed mindset. What we have since discovered, however, is that we can teach an old dog new tricks; it just takes longer. We now know that brains can grow, even in our old age. We also know that brains grow in relation to how much certain skills are practiced. Quite a bit of my brain lights up when I hit a forehand in tennis, but sadly there is barely a flicker when it comes to hitting a golf shot. But that is directly related to how many hours of practice I have dedicated to each sport.

The well-developed part of the brain related to a skill practiced for 10,000 hours is like a super highway. Without those hours of practice that part of the brain is comparable to a bunch of backcountry dirt roads. Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity basketball team his sophomore year of high school. 10,000 hours of practice later, he was helping North Carolina win a national championship. If talent were all it took, all those grueling hours in the gym would not have been necessary. Jordan’s approach to the game epitomized a growth mindset. Anthony and his uncle somehow missed that part of Jordan’s biography.

“I suck at math” and “I can’t draw” are also fixed mindsets. If you compare yourself with others who are doing better, you can conclude you simply don’t have the ability. But improvement comes one small step at a time, advancing on developmental time, enhanced by practice, not simply by the passing of chronological time. If a child is expected to keep up with his age cohort in reading or math, he may conclude he lacks the talent to be good at those subjects. Math is learned one concept at a time, with explanations, demonstrations, practice problems, error analysis, and then more problems. Learning math is like building a house, one brick at a time. It occurs on developmental time, not chronological time.

The scrawniest guy on our high school tennis team epitomized the growth mindset. By all appearances, he felt no shame. Failure didn’t faze him. He just wasn’t a normal guy. He would play anyone, usually someone better than he and didn’t mind losing. In fact, he equated losing with learning. Still short and bowlegged even as a senior, he was the only one who emerged with a full-ride, Division I tennis scholarship. Anyone who watched his growth mindset at work would notice that every week, he was a better tennis player than he was the week before. That could not be said about the rest of us, with our egos safely protected.

Do you still think you can spot the future successes in 3rd grade? Could you spot the future failures? Can you spot a child with a growth mindset? How about the teacher? The parent(s)? Can a fixed mindset be changed? For Anthony’s sake, let’s hope so.

Mindset: The new psychology of success by Carol Dweck fully explains the powerful effect of a Growth vs. Fixed Mindset for development in all areas – ourselves, our children, our students, and our players.

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle explains that people are not born with greatness, but develop it with effective practice.

Anthony is a fictional composite of all too common “can’t miss” athletes.

Don’t Eat The Marshmallow!

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Delay of gratification, willpower, impulse control, self-control, or internal discipline are terms that describe an ability to wait to be rewarded. Although some children are temperamentally less impulsive, the ability to self-soothe, distract, or reason about an urge to act can be learned and improved. The ability to delay gratification (develop internal discipline) is an important ingredient for gaining competence in all areas of a child’s life (socially, emotionally and intellectually).

An Ability to Delay Gratification Predicts Success in Life

 Are you familiar with the classic delay of gratification studies conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s? The what? Have you seen the YouTube video of four-year-olds trying to resist eating the marshmallow in front of them? If I had asked you, have you ever heard of the MarshmallowTest, you would have known exactly what I was talking about. Give it up for YouTube, where gratification need never be delayed. I still have not jogged your memory? Then go to YouTube right now for a reenactment of the classic study, where four-year-old children are left alone in a room with a marshmallow (or a cookie, or candy) with the promise of a second marshmallow if they do not eat this one before the experimenter returns (in 15 minutes). Only thirty percent of the children were able to wait. Not surprising, is it?

Mischel discovered that by the end of high school, the kids who were able to wait seemed better adjusted psychologically and were higher achievers, with significantly higher SAT scores (>200 pts higher) and better grades. Those who could not wait more than thirty seconds had trouble paying attention in school, coping with stress, and maintaining friendships. More recently, Angela Lee Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania offered eighth graders one dollar now or two if they could wait a week. Those who could wait fared much better academically. In fact, this measure of self-control was a better predictor of academic achievement than IQ.

As you might guess, these kids who can delay gratification grow up to be the ones who invest for retirement, wait for the best pitch to hit, and don’t say, “yes” to the first bad idea. They are able to wait to play their video games until after the homework is done.

So, are these delayers born with something special? Are their brains wired differently from birth? Are some kids just naturally more impulsive while others are more cautious and deliberate? You can be sure that the fMRI machines are cranking away in search of these answers. We can also be certain that a search for a genetic linkage will also be part of the next wave of research.

So what does that mean for us sticky fingered failures? Are we doomed to a second-class future, swinging at everything we are thrown, eating everything we see? Interestingly, Mischel found that he could provide children with techniques for resisting temptation. He said kids who continue to focus on the “hot stimulus” were doomed. But the ones who could distract themselves, were able to resist. Providing kids with techniques for taking their thoughts elsewhere, or transforming the meaning of the situation could be very helpful. In other words, self-control can be taught. Mischel also pointed out that a group of the kids who “failed to wait” grew up to be quite skilled in self-control as adults. Somehow, they found ways to teach themselves the self-regulation that came more naturally to the “delayers”.

Children are temperamentally inclined in one direction or another. At one extreme are the kids who are impulsive and labeled as Attention Deficit, Hyperactive. At the other extreme are the kids who come to be labeled as Obsessive Compulsive. Most kids are somewhere in between. Even though biology or temperament inclines a child in one direction or another, that does not mean they cannot grow in terms of self-control (or spontaneity).

Environments can be structured to help with focus and attention. Children can be taught techniques for self-control and self-soothing. Mischel explained that children can be taught habits of self-control in the family through rituals that force kids to wait on a daily basis, showing them that they can develop that self-control, and having them learn the benefits for that delay. Examples of that are limits such as no television or video games until homework is done, no snacks before dinner, save money for a desired purchase and wait until your birthday for a wished for gift. When children must work within limits (a clothing allowance for instance) they learn the benefits of self-control and the hazards of impulsivity.

The Magic Formula

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Children are motivated when they genuinely want a goal and believe they can accomplish it. That is quite different than a goal we want for them or we think they can or should attain. Getting it right, in terms of the Magic Formula: INVESTMENT = (I WANT) x (I CAN), is essential to motivation at school or at home.

 

The Magic Formula: The Essentials of Motivation

 

January of my senior year of college, four of us headed for Florida “to work on our tennis games.” As part of that on court development, we ventured into a Jai Alai arena in Miami one evening. Unfamiliar with the sport and ignorant of its subtleties, I quickly became bored and prepared to leave. But soon after placing a two-dollar bet, my face was plastered against the protective viewing glass screaming, “Go Cuatro!” Anyone can see that after placing my bet, “I had skin in the game.” I went from passive and bored to an amped up fanatic. I share the experience because the difference in feeling was so dramatic, so visceral and so immediate. (It’s a little like filling out your NCAA basketball bracket in March and putting your $5 into the office pool.)

Red-faced and exhausted, you look across the kitchen table at your son and throw up your hands – unwilling to “go to the mat” with him one more time about finishing his homework. Now think, when it comes to finishing homework, “Who has the skin in the game?” As a parent, you are in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” position. You know for a fact that there is a world of difference in the outcomes of kids whose parents care and those who don’t. But at what price? You are their parent, not their friend. But you shouldn’t have to be the enemy in the process. Some days it feels like that, and you can see why many parents just let things slide. Parents do their own form of coasting. The child says, “I got it done at school” and accepting that excuse saves another evening of battling. Structure, limits and high expectations are essential. But motivation to do homework or work around the house should not just come from outside the child. There is a limit to how well that will work, and the older the child gets, the less well external sources of motivation work.

The secret to work at school, work at home, or work on the ball field is investment. If the child is not invested in the process, there are serious limits to what they can accomplish and how much they can be motivated. But, there is a magic formula for investment. Some might say, “Secret Formula” given the common absence of its application. It is simply:

(I want) x (I can) = Investment

If I have some skin in the game, if I truly want something, I am motivated to go after it. Equally as important is the belief that I can accomplish what I am after. When I want something and believe I am capable of achieving it, I’m invested. As a parent, a teacher, or a coach, we need to be on the correct side of this equation. If the child perceives the formula to read:

(You want) x (I can) = investment

the investment depends more on not wanting to disappoint the parent, coach or teacher and less on something internal for the child. Like I said, the older the child, the less this second formula works. Adults who rely on the second formula usually have a rude awakening when the investment evaporates with adolescence.

Before you focus on what they should do, you need to focus on what goal they truly seek – what will make them “want” to do what it takes to get to that goal.

So, before you get ready to do battle again, figure out how you help your child get some “skin in the game” and (want). Here’s a hint. Consider what the goal is and who is choosing it. If you have chosen it, then you have a lot of convincing to do to make the child want it as well. Here’s another hint: Start by listening (and being curious). If you start by joining them in their world, you have a good start at gradually pulling them into your world. Some kids accept the “because I said so” rationale. But if we are hoping for kids who think for themselves, our goals can quickly conflict on this course. It takes more work to find a course that includes a genuine (I want) on the part of the child, but the “because I said so” almost universally crashes and burns. And if it doesn’t, you have a whole set of different problems involving submission, accommodation, dependence, resentment, and depression waiting at the end of that developmental hallway. Or is that what we call, “normal adolescence”?

The Goldilocks Principle

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Working within a Zone of Proximal Development promotes growth. ZPD is defined by the zone (tasks or expectations) just beyond what a child can do independently, yet short of what would be overwhelming, even with help. With the help of instruction and/or support (scaffolding) a child can take on new challenges. That scaffolding is gradually withdrawn as the skill is mastered, and the zone is adjusted upwards.

 

The Goldilocks Principle

ZPD – Where we learn best

Remember the story of Goldilocks? Of course. Do you remember Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development? Maybe not? Let’s finally put Goldilocks to some good use. Of all people, “Why Goldilocks?” you ask? I’m finding value in that totally self-absorbed, overly entitled, seriously unsupervised little brat? Hear me out. We may get some actual work out of Goldi yet. By linking ZPD and Goldilocks, perhaps the former will be easier to access and the latter will be easier to tolerate.

As you recall, after breaking and entering, Goldilocks began her comfort seeking. “Not too hard, not too soft, just right.” … “Not too hot, not too cold, just right.” You remember the basic theme. Actually that theme is an important one to remember. In fact, let’s call it a principle. The Goldilocks’ Principle: Not too ____, Not too _____, Just right? That’s much easier than calling it the Zone of Proximal Development, which is an essential part of any toolkit for parents, teachers, and coaches.

In its simplest form, ZPD means that children learn best when the work is not too hard, nor too easy, but just right. Vygotsky actually made it a little more sophisticated than a mere paraphrasing of Goldilocks. He said that the Zone of Proximal Development is defined at the lower limit by what children are capable of doing independently, with no help. The upper limit is bounded by what children are not yet capable of doing, even with the help of an adult. Bored vs. Overwhelmed for those of you who want to keep it as simple as it should be. Within the ZPD, children are capable of more challenging work if they have the assistance of an adult. In other words, they are challenged, but they have the necessary support to take it on. Operating within the ZPD means that as they begin to master the work, the amount of necessary support is reduced and the ZPD is adjusted upwards.

 

Goldilocks Principle (GP) = Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Goldilocks Principle (GP) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) What My Mother Calls “Common Sense”
“Too Hot” Cannot do, even with help Overwhelmed
“Just Right” Zone of Proximal Development Challenged    (w/ support)
“Too Cold” Can do independently Bored

The support that allows the child to take on the more challenging work is often called scaffolding, as in the structure used to support workmen while constructing a building. In this case, the scaffolding (in the form of demonstrations, corrective feedback, support or encouragement) is withdrawn as the child attains mastery of the skill and no longer needs the support. Children need high expectations, but they also need the structure and support to make those expectations attainable.

Another good way to remember the workings of ZPD and scaffolding is to visualize a child learning to rock climb. With the aid of a harness, belaying rope and coach, the child can take on the challenge of climbing, trust that he will be safe when he falls, learn from his mistakes, and constantly improve. Without the belaying, most kids stay close to the ground, while the others put the orthopedist’s children through college.

(in terms of BIG IDEAS in Child Development, they don’t get any bigger than Vygotsky’s ZPD)