Montessori actively discourages praise

Until June 2011, my ideas of Montessori were based on what i saw in Montessori schools. I got fascinated by the kids in Montessori by watching their ability to focus on an activity for a long period, even for a hour, at the age of 5. So when I  formally started doing a diploma course in Montessori in Bangalore to understand the underlying principles of Montessori philosophy, i was surprised. Despite spending 7 years in researching the principles of developing a work-life career, I was surprised to note that the learning principles used in Montessori , which started in 1907, are also useful even in work-life learning. Here is one such principle: Praise is not useful for learning.

Unlike traditional schooling method, Montessori discourages praise. If the student does an activity well, the teacher ( or called as Adult in Montessori method) simply acknowledges the completion of activity by a nod, a smile and simply takes up the next activity. No further praise is offered.

According to the Montessori philosophy, praise is not offered to children because of three specific reasons.

1. Praise actively discourages  a child to pick up difficult activities

From the 300+ activities in a Montessori environment in Montessori school, a child chooses his own activity to do. If a child is praised for doing an activity well, the child is more likely to link the 'praise' with the 'completion of the activity'. And if he does so, he is not likely to choose a difficult activity, which he thinks he cannot do well. This discourages experimentation and challenge. The learning of child stops due to fear of failing.

2. Praise makes a child choose an activity for helping him look 'smart'. 

Because of praise, the child wants to chose an activity only if he can look smart. He is more concerned with looking smart than learning anything new. A Montessorian Adult watches his student carefully all the time. If a child is not choosing a new activity,  the Adult knows that he has to intervene subtly.

You can observe this in behaviour in a child if you are a teacher or parent. For instance, you will often find some children do activities 'at home' so that they can look smart in the 'class'. They are more likely to raise hands for any questions, even when they do not know the right answers. They are more likely to ask 'unrelated questions' in a class to look smart, instead of asking questions to learn anything new.

3. Praise develops a dysfunctional mind set in the child 

If praise continues for a longer time, the child starts considering his 'intelligence' as fixed.  He starts believing that he is good because his innate intelligence is high. He is brilliant because he is born brilliant. Psychologists call it development of fixed mindset visavis growth mindset. Carol Dweck has done a very good work on this aspect. For more details, see this website.

With fixed mind set, the child believes that his intelligence is fixed. If he fails in completing a difficult activity, he perceives his mistakes as failures.On the other hand, growth mindset helps the child take up a difficult activity, because he believes that his 'intelligence' can be grown by repeated attempts. He considers mistakes as part of the process of learning. If you want to check your own mind set or your child's mindset, go to this website and check it out.

Conclusion to be used later 

If you see your child is not performing a difficult activity, you should be really worried . If your child is more concerned of doing new activities to look smart, you should be concerned. At least you can start change the way you praise your child.

Start praising his effort, instead of praising his nature or intelligence. If he finishes some activity, praise him by saying 'You were good in finishing that activity', instead of praising him "You were brilliant'.Or say " You must have studied hard". This type of praise redirects his attention to 'controllable effort' , away from his 'innate intelligence'. That is the first step in helping your child get into the growth mindset. 

Children are not all apples or oranges

Whenever I suggest some idea or tip to a Mom for helping her child, the mother comes back to me and says "It does not work for my child." I often have to tell Mom that it will never work as-is, you have to adapt it to your child's situation. You cannot 'adopt' a tip as it is.

Every child is unique. There is a big confusion about 'heritable' traits and 'development' traits. Nature versus Nurture has been an ongoing debate for centuries. When we think of heritable traits, we think of them as 'non-changeable'. And when we think of 'development' traits, we think of them as 'changeable'. Nothing is farther from truth. Our traits are formed both by 'nature' as well as 'nurture'. 

Although researchers find it very difficult to agree with the list of traits that a child comes with, now it is agreed that child's temperament is a trait that the child comes with. It makes him unique. The following list defines eight temperament traits**. Each trait exists in a child along a continuum from high to low. It is not right or wrong.

1. Activity level—amount of physical movement that the child has. We call overactive child as intelligent, and underactive child as 'dull'. But when a child has this trait  on a lower side, it is difficult to distinguish if 'dullness' of the child has been caused by lower activity level of the child or vice versa. 
2. Biological rhythms—regularity in eating, sleeping, and elimination. Some children have variable rhythm, some have fixed. When a child does not get too much disturbed in your travel, you can assume that your child demands low level of regularity. But if the child has high level of demand on this, then the parents have to take extra care to 'preserve' the biological rhythm
3. Approach/withdrawal—comfort in new situation. This trait determines the nature of the extroversion of the child. Because the child withdraws from a stranger due to this temperament, less people take the child ( reactive covariance) making the child even more withdrawn. ( Active covariance)
4. Mood—whether a child is mostly positive or negative. Some mothers are lucky to have a child with negative mood, thereby forcing them mature fast. They have to learn to  'stop reacting' to their moods, if they want their child to become less glummer. 
5. Intensity of reaction—how much a child reacts to situations or stimuli. If a child's reaction to stimuli is very high, he or she may get addicted to TV quite easily. 
6. Adaptability—ability to manage changes in routine or recover from being upset. If a child takes longer time to recover from the upset  - like not getting his food immediately, or not getting his toy - then the parents have to help the child to manage his or her upset. This can become a nice lesson in 'self regulation'. 
7. Distractibility—how easily a child’s attention is distracted. As you would realise, this trait can be utilised smartly. When the child is 'demanding' a certain action  - like starting a TV or going out -you will find that it is OK to have a highly distractable child, because he can be easily distracted from his original goal than a less distracted child. 
8. Persistence—how long a child will stay with a difficult activity before giving up. Many parents surprisingly do not nurture this trait even when the child has high level of this trait. No sooner is the child engaged in playing with, say a flower , the parents distract him by showing a 'ball'. 

In short, you will realise that every trait forces the parents to 'respond' to the child in a different way. If the parents just 'react' ( instead of responding) then they cause more harm to the child's development. 

For instance, if a child has low comfort with the strangers, the parents often misunderstand this as 'low confidence' and try to force the child to accept the stranger quickly. This leads to the trigger of vicious circle making the child even more 'withdrawn'. Parents have to learn to introduce a withdrawn child to a stranger in stages : first in the presence of the parents, then using some object like mobile to distract the child, and waiting for the child to show his acceptance before asking the stranger to shake her hand. If this is not done, by the age of 3-4, after repeated cycles, the child becomes 'withdrawn'. Has this child acquired the characteristics of withdrawn child, or did the innate trait of 'withdrawal' only got heightened? 

Imagine that the child is less 'distractable'. If the parents introduce this child to different 'food items' instead of making him eat his food, the child refuses to eat his normal food. Now the parents have to spend extra efforts and energy in making the child eat his normal food. Or if the child is less adaptable, the parents has to give him time to recover from his upset. If the parents force him to the next set of action, imagining that the child would have forgotten, the parent's action unknowingly leads to many unintended consequences.

As researchers like to say, Parents can make a lot of difference to the development of their children not by transferring their genes, but by enabling or disabling the expression of their genes. 

**Adapted from A.Thomas and S. Chess, Temperament and Development (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1977).

Do single-child parents have a bigger problem?

Sanjeevani's daughter was not giving a 'chocolate' to me, despite being told numerous times. When i told Sanjeevani that it is OK, Sanjeevani got even more irritated. She said ' Now a days, Vidya is becoming more and more selfish. She does not share anything with anyone". I replied that it is normal for a child of four. She retorted, " But shouldn't she learn to share?'. I kept quiet. She continued " And she is not going to have any sibling. So I have to teach her. I have no choice"

With more and more parents preferring to have just one child, you will find many more parents like Sanjeevani. The negative stereotypes of single-child — lonely, selfish, bossy, spoiled, socially maladjusted—prevalent in the society make parents think their child will be at a disadvantage when compared to those who grow up with siblings. The Case for the Only Child: Your Essential Guide by Susan Newman has compiled a good amount of statistics to debug this myth. 

Here are some significant statements from her research that will rest your doubts:

1. More and more families are going for single-child families. In US, the figure is about 25%. In urban india, this figure would perhaps be same.

2. Mothers of single child are happier, although it has no difference on the father's contentment. It is my guess that this is true when today's mothers learn to adopt more 'adult-centric' life than their mothers. 

3.  Negative stereotypes - bossy, selfish, spoiled child - are not true. 

4. Siblings are not essential for normal development of child.


The last point requires some elaboration, because today's children face real handicaps in developing relationship skill, the skill which enables us to relate with other people and collaborate with them. Other bigger handicaps - like absence of elders in the family, living more in front of TV instead of playground, transactional nature of urban societies, ability to have virtual friends than real physical friends due to internet - are more powerful contributors to the lack of skill in relating with people. In other words, the effect is less due to lack of sibling, and perhaps due to other contributory factors.

If parents do the following, their single children get the necessary help in their development

1. Teach them empathy and sympathy for others so that they learn other perspectives: Being an only child sometimes does not give them the opportunity to have to deal with multiple points of view like other children with siblings. Utilise these tips that we discussed in the earlier blog.

2. Teach them to manage interpersonal issues by keeping aloof: If you as a parent intercede too much and try to overly involve yourself in friendship issues of your child, your child will never learn how to solve them on their own. Instead of solving their issues, ask them questions " What do you think is a good way to solve this issue?” or “ Is there something you may have contributed to this situation that caused this? (kids try to make themselves sound innocent yet there are always two sides to everything!)”. In some issues like bullying or hitting each other beyond normal, your  more than normal involvement may be required. 

3. Be aware of active and reactive covariance while relating with child:  Parents of single children often 'tend' to put all their expectations, directly or indirectly, on the shoulders of their only child. If you push your child too 'hard' ( parents do it very subtly and indirectly), she will sense your 'pressure', and become too cautious and defensive under the pressure of your expectations. 

Use punishments for a long term benefit

Punishments have to be sparingly used to be effective. There is unmistakable data to prove that punishments - specifically spanking the children - make the children more aggressive and hostile over a period of years. So, why are punishments necessary?

Why are punishments needed 

Every child seems to have a  innate moral sense. Psychologists have agreed on this. But, surprisingly, it turns out that it there is a wide difference between moral reasoning and moral behaviour, a behaviour by which we resist temptation even when the possibility of detecting and punishment is zero. Enron and the Accenture cases seem to prove that even well paid corporate executives tend to behave 'immorally', when they see the possibility of detecting their behaviour is zero. If you are not convinced that  this behaviour is rampant, read this book of Jonathan Macey, The death of corporate reputation.

Harvard psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, believes that our moral reasoning is developed in three levels.  First level is of Pre-conventional morality. At this level, the view of morality is determined by obedience to fixed set of rules which are governed by punishment. Second level is of Conventional Morality where the morality is seen as the set of rules that enable one to maintain the deal and relations between people. Third view is Post conventional morality where the views are based on Universal Moral principles of right and wrong.

A child, to develop his own moral sense, needs to move from the  first level to third level in stages. He does not grow to third level in one leap. At the age of 3, child begins to lie.  By age 6, a child will tell a lie every 90 minutes, and that too in a more sophisticated manner. It is important to give such a child an experience of consistent and clear boundaries of rules (level 1), so that he can move to higher levels at later age. This is the purpose of punishment.

2 Pre-conditions to make punishment effective 

With this background, you will appreciate that if punishments have to be effective, it must satisfy these two conditions:

1. Punishments are effective when the rules of behaviour are told to the children before hand and that too, in clear terms.

For instance, the child does not understand the meaning of 'stealing' because it depends on the context. For instance, if his brother takes away his 'pencil' without asking him, we do not call it stealing. But when he 'picks the pencil' from a class student and brings it home, we call it stealing. The child should clearly understand what you mean by stealing.

In other words, punishment should not be given for unmentioned and unspecified rules. For instance, if the child breaks the rule for the first time - inadvertently - when the rule was not known to the child, the child should not be punished at that time. Instead, he should be forewarned of the rule.

This also means that rules should be as few as possible. Too many rules make it difficult to administer the punishments.

2. Punishments are effective when the rules of behaviour are consistently adhered to every time.

Consistency is very important. If the child breaks the rule, he should still be punished, even though the punishment may seem to be mistaken.

For instance, if the child is given the rule that he will be punished if he 'hits his sisters back', he should be punished even when he has 'hit' for more appropriate reasons, like the reason that his sister was 'teasing him' incessantly for long time.

Three musts while delivering punishment 

Punishments, on the other hand, should also be delivered effectively, if they have to enable the child to learn to remain within the boundaries of rules:

1. Punishment should be prompt

If the rule has been broken in the morning, punishment should not be delivered in the evening. Delay affects the child's learning from the mistake. It is of no use.

When for instance, if you are hearing about the infraction of rule on the next day, administering punishment with this delay is not effective. Although a strict forewarning could be used at such times.

2. Punishment should be emotionally safe

For a child, this is a very important condition. The message given to the child even while administering punishment should be, 'We actually care about you'. The child should feel secure even while receiving the punishment. For instance, threats of 'I do not love you', or 'I will send you to boarding' should not be issued during administering the punishment.

3. Punishment should be delivered along with 'why of the rule'

If the punishment is meant for ' not touching the dog', the child should be told the reason 'why touching dog' is harmful. If the punishment is for stealing, the child should be told the consequences of stealing. Punishments given with rationale are helpful for child in understanding the rules of behaviour, and later internalise those rules in his own behaviour.

Conclusion

In other words, to use punishments for its real benefit, the parents should first have a clear set of 'rules of behaviour' ( the boundaries). Then they should ensure that the children constantly remain within those set boundaries by administering punishments. The lower the number of rules, the easier  it is to administer. And above all, they should impart the rationale of the rules to the child so that he can 'internalise' the rules of behaviour and later develop the maturity to develop his own set of rules. ( Level 3)

What is the long term impact of Pre-school teacher on your child?

Here is an interesting study done by Raj Chetty and his Harvard Kennedy School associates such as John Friedman. Such longitudinal studies ( studies done of a student from pre-school years to late work-life) are rare.Read this summary of the report.

This study was done in 1980's. About 12,000 students were involved in the study done in US. Children were randomly assigned to teachers, not selected on any criteria. These children were tracked for next 30 years.

Four key findings of the study

Read the fuller report here. 

First, students in small classes are significantly more likely to attend college and exhibit improvements on other outcomes. 

However, Class size does not have a significant effect on earnings at age 27, but this effect is imprecisely estimated. It has been always assumed that small class size matters to students. However, as we have seen in earlier study, small class sizes do not improve the quality of education. This is good for Indian schools, where class sizes are large. 

Second, students who had a more experienced teacher in kindergarten have higher earnings. 

The earning effect was measured at increase in earnings of about 1000 US $ at the age of 27. This effect will naturally increase with age and experience, which was not measured by the study.

The study could not find the 'type of teachers' who affect the students most. It could find only one variable that mattered: the experience of teacher. What this probably means is that, experienced teacher gain the necessary patience and 'wisdom' to view 'child as child' and therefore tend to be better teachers. 

Third, an analysis of variance reveals significant classroom effects on earnings. Students who were randomly assigned to higher quality classrooms in grades K-3 – as measured by classmates' end-of-class test scores – have higher earnings, college attendance rates, and other outcomes.

This random assignment is important because this randomisation eliminates other differences like parental status, rich background or educational background. This means that teacher impacts a student's life more than other attributes such as parental background. 

Finally, the effects of class quality fade out on test scores in later grades but gains in non-cognitive measures persist. This finding is very important, but not-so surprising. 

This only reminds us that development centric schools are more important than learning-centric schools in the long run.  Students attributes such as manners, ability to focus and self discipline matter more than the learning attributes like IQ and talent.

Conclusion

Most interesting finding of the study, according to me, is that the effect of a good pre-school teacher vanishes in 7th and 8th grade. And it re-appears in the work-life. In other words it has long term impact.

As Raj Chetty says, ' A good kindergarten teacher teaches skills like how to be a disciplined student'. These developmental qualities matter more in the long run although they may not show in the learning scores immediately.

Learning to use Empathy is the first step in making an emotional intelligent child

In Sanjeevani's case that we discussed in the earlier blog, we saw the importance of empathy. Before helping her daughter Vidya to behave differently, she has to understand what her daughter is feeling and why.

According to John Gottman, the renowned researcher on marriage relationship and parenting, "Empathy not only matters, it is the foundation of effective parenting". Although sympathy and empathy are used in similar ways, they are different. In sympathy, you feel the emotions of others, but in empathy you go one step beyond - you can also understand why someone is feeling that by putting yourself in that person's shoes. So empathy is more personal. When you feel 'heard' in the presence of someone, then someone is showing 'empathy'.

Why does Empathy work? Empathy works so well , because understanding is enough to resolve many of the issues. One does not require any 'solution' to resolve an issue. When you are, for instance, facing disagreements with your partner, empathy is enough even if there is 'no solution' to the disagreement.

Three-step process of practicing empathy

Step 1: Embrace the feeling

When you see your child in disagreement or distress, or facing an issue with someone, and the child comes to you, describe the feeling you think you are seeing. Embrace the feeling. Do not run away from it. Do not intellectualise it, or moralise it.

For instance, Sanjeevani, observing that Vidya is not giving the biscuit to Uncle, her first response should be to observe Vidya's posture and describe the emotional changes Vidya could be experiencing. For instance, she could ask Vidya "It seems that you love biscuits so much." Or 'You look upset with something." "Or you look angry with something'. If Sanjeevani senses that she is angry with Uncle, she could also say " Are you angry with your Uncle?". The idea in the step 1 is to just identify the emotion, and try to 'name' the emotion. Nothing more.

Step 2: Guess the trigger of the feeling.

Only after you get some kind of 'acknowledgement' that you have named the right feeling, you should take this second step.

In the second step, the parent has to guess the origin of the 'named accepted' feeling. If Vidya shows that she is 'angry with something', then Sanjeevani has to make an educated guess and 'guess the origin of anger'. For instance, Sanjeevani could say ' It seems that you are angry because you did not do well in the exam today'. Or ' You seem to be angry because your toy has got broken'. Or ' You seem to be angry because you had a fight with your friend' and so on.

As you would have realised, that making these guesses is not easy. One must be fully aware of the 'context' of a other person, to make the 'appropriate' guess.  It comes with practice.

Step 3: Resolve ( Not dissolve) the feeling 

Once the child accepts the 'feeling' and also the 'origin' of the feeling, then the child would acknowledge it. If the child is too distressed, she might come to the parent's lap and rest. Or she may just show in her body language. Once the child 'acknowledges', the feeling is resolved. It may recur again. It does not get dissolved.

Parents are often tempted to use the 'situation' and give more advice. For instance, Sanjeevani could now give a long lecture to Vidya as to how " It is not good to get angry with the friend'. Please refrain from this step. Just resolve the feeling. If advice has to be given, give a very specific advice. Take a deep breath, if necessary, and wait. Let the moment be 'accepted'. No further advice is necessary. Empathy is a powerful resolver.

Conclusion

After reading the three steps, you will understand why Sanjeevani was wrong in pushing Vidya to change her behaviour. She kept on asking Vidya to change her behaviour without showing empathy. Even if Sanjeevani had succeeded, Vidya would have felt 'unheard' and therefore 'felt cheated'. If this kind of experience keeps on repeating, Vidya will stop listening to her mother. Then, Sanjeevani will wonder what went wrong?

If you find practicing empathy with child is difficult, practice it with your spouse or close friend. It may be easy to learn empathy with spouse or friend, because you will get feedback on your ability to name the right emotion, guess the right origin, and then wait for the closure to happen. Practicing with spouse is more beneficial, because it also increases marital satisfaction.

Empathy is so critical in parenting that parents with empathy enjoy the highest probability of raising smart, happy and morally aware kids. They may not raise a child who is a genius like Einstein, but they will raise a child who is emotionally intelligent. 

Talking with your child in the first three years makes a big difference to your child

Two researchers, Todd Risley and Betty Hart, observed and recorded the physical and verbal interactions between parents and children in their homes for the first two and half years of a child's lives. They found something very interesting.

They found, that, on average, parents speak 1500 words per hour to their infant children. But there is a significant difference between educated and uneducated parents. They discovered that college educated 'talkative' parents speak about 2100 words per hour while parents in 'welfare families' speak about 600 words per hour. What impact does this difference have on the children's cognitive capacity?

They administered a Standard-Binet IQ test to these children at age 3. They found a powerful correlation coefficient of 0.6 between the size of the number of words the child had heard and the size of the vocabulary. But the bigger surprise is this:when they measured the correlation coefficient of parent's 'extra talk' , by eliminating the business talk between parent and child, they discovered that it increased to a staggeringly high figure of 0.78.  High correlation coefficient between x and y means that when x happens y also happens. When correlation coefficient is 1, y will definitely happen if x happens. This means, that increase in word size of parent talk has a 78% chance of increasing the vocabulary of the child. In statistical terms, this correlation is very high.

The researchers continued to measure the vocabulary as the children grew older. At age 9, the correlation coefficient was still at 0.77. In other words, breadth of child's vocabulary and reading comprehension remained high even till the age of 9. This means that children who have been talked more by their parents have an incalculable cognitive advantage compared to other children. When these students confront and succeed at the initial academic challenges they encounter in primary school, their sense of self-confidence can blossom. On the other hand, other students, because of this small cognitive disadvantage may find academic work intimidating and unexciting, robbing them of the self confidence. Do you understand how 'small' advantages ( or disadvantages) at a young age can create a big big difference at an older age?

What is surprising is that level of income, ethnicity and even parent's education does not have as much 'explanatory power' ( high correlation coefficient) in determining the level of cognitive capacity as much as this 'extra talk' has. In other words, even if you are poor,  it will still help your child improve his cognitive capacity, if you manage to talk to your child as much as 2000 words per hour.

What 'extra talk' did the researchers found to be more effective? The talk that matters to building the cognitive capacity of child is not the 'business talk', but the 'extra talk'. Researchers found that business talk such as 'Finish your food' ' Do this' or 'Get in the car' etc does not impact the cognitive capacity as much because they seem to be simple, direct and lack nuances. The talk that a child listens when he is put infront of television also does not help the child.

On the other hand, the 'extra talk' that impacts the cognitive capacity is the talk which happens when parents engage with their infants and speak in a fully adult, sophisticated and chatty language ( not bubbly language). This talk happens when the infants are listening, comprehending and fully responding to the comments. It is the talk that is about 'what if', 'do you remember', 'shouldn't you', and so on. They invite infants to think deeply about what is happening around him. This 'extra talk' happens when the parents think aloud of what they are doing or planning.

Researchers have discovered various 'causes' for the above 'correlation'.One of the important cause seem to be Auditory processing skill, that children must be acquiring in these first three years of listening to 'extra talk' with the parents.