I once had a wonderful professor who was funny and a great teacher in front of the class. When I spoke with him privately, though, I felt like an idiot. Once, while discussing my plans for a research project, he snapped, “Why would you want to do that?!?”which left me feeling off-balance and dumb, not sure why I had thought “that” was such a great idea in the first place.
Consciously or not, by belittling my ideas, he made himself look smarter. “Teresa Amabile at Harvard showed that humans have a tendency to perceive critics as smarter than approvers when they lack sufficient information to make judgments on the content of statements,” reports Dave Shearon, MAPP.
In fact, Teresa Amabile says, “Negative reviewers were perceived as more intelligent, competent and expert than positive reviewers, even when the content of the positive review was independently judged as being of higher quality and greater forcefulness.”
Are Positive People Dumber?
This got me think about the common saying, “Fat, dumb and happy.” Where did that come from and why do we conjure an image of the Pillsbury Dough Boy when we use the word “happy?” Whatever the origins, you can be sure it is not a recent development. According to Shearon, Gustave Flaubert said, ‘To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.’
We set up a flawed choice in our language and perceptions: be negative and smart or cheerful and dumb . Do we really want to leave our children (or ourselves) with the idea that being critical and negative means you’re smarter? Not if we want them to live, long satisfying lives, we don’t (see #1 below).
To free your child from the critics' trap, show them that this is a flawed choice, that they can be both positive and smart. Here are a few ways to do this:
1. Know the Recipe for a Satisfying Life
Maybe we would be less skeptical of cheerfulness if we understood that to live a long, healthy life you must feel more positive emotion, according to research on health, nuns, and Harvard men. The “heart strengths” of love, hope, zest and gratitude are correlated with life satisfaction and intellectual strengths are not, according to Marty Seligman and Chris Peterson.
This must have been obvious to Ernest Hemingway, who said, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
2. Remind him that a 2-year-old can say, “No.”
We have this notion that it’s more sophisticated to be negative, but the fact is it’s so simple that even a toddler can do it. What’s sophisticated is coming up with creative new ideas, concepts, products and services.
Demonstrate this to your teen by setting a timer and asking her to criticize something of yours (writing, cooking, clothing…). Then set the timer again and ask her to help you expand upon the good aspects of the item in question. She’ll see how much more time, effort and thought go into building-up than tearing-down.
3. Seek the Gems
A friend’s father once said, “I’ve never met a man from whom I cannot learn” and in the past 25 years I’ve found he’s absolutely right. Encourage your child to find a gem, something smart and worth understanding, in others and in himself.
When he looks for things to appreciate, not only will he learn and explore the world with curiosity and intelligence, but he'll increase the positive emotions that lead to lasting happiness. Isn't that smart? :)
Your child has tremendous potential and specific gifts to share with the world. If it's a challenge for you to see this right now, you need a Better Frame of Reference. A good place to start is our small-group Parent Mentoring program on January 30, in Wellesley, MA. Learn more...
Showing posts with label positive parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positive parenting. Show all posts
Starting our kids on the right path
Today's Boston Globe Magazine has an article about stressed 5-year-olds. No, that is not a typo-- I did not accidently type 5 instead of 15. The article is about "pressurized kindergarten."
Apparently some people think it's a good idea to begin testing and assessing academic performance as early as possible. Perhaps they think that starting young will help these children to better deal with unhealthy stress they may encounter in high school.
With all the focus on preparing kids for high school -- which is then focused on preparing them for college-- we can lose sight of our ultimate goals for children. Don't we want future leaders and productive citizens who thrive in life? Adults with loving relationships who create a better world?
Perhaps those who are pushing academic assessments into kindergartens don't know that we have an epidemic of depression and anxiety, with 1 in 5 high school students having a full clinical episode. Perhaps they don't know that even when a child doesn't know he will be assessed-- but his parent is told-- the student's anxiety increases and performance worsens.
Perhaps they don't know this about college students:
"The vast majority of college students are feeling stressed these days, and significant numbers are at risk of depression, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll. Eighty-five percent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits..." says the May 21 Associated Press article on newsvine.com.
Instead of bringing college- and high school-stressors to kindergarten, we should look at what matters most for thriving in life. The data is very clear: academic performance is not a good predictor of a lifetime of flourishing. To thrive in the future economy we need less fact- regurgitating and more creativity. To help our children thrive in life, we need to stop worrying about test scores and start encouraging them to increase positive emotion by developing their gifts and strengths.
Why is it that schools from college to kindergarten aren't measuring the results that matter: how their graduates fare in life? When you look at many years of real-life data you find a very different picture than most of us are usually given. Positive emotion predicts creativity, longevity, physical health, relationship satisfaction and career success. Let's start kids on the right path and focus on what will matter most for their lives.
Apparently some people think it's a good idea to begin testing and assessing academic performance as early as possible. Perhaps they think that starting young will help these children to better deal with unhealthy stress they may encounter in high school.
With all the focus on preparing kids for high school -- which is then focused on preparing them for college-- we can lose sight of our ultimate goals for children. Don't we want future leaders and productive citizens who thrive in life? Adults with loving relationships who create a better world?
Perhaps those who are pushing academic assessments into kindergartens don't know that we have an epidemic of depression and anxiety, with 1 in 5 high school students having a full clinical episode. Perhaps they don't know that even when a child doesn't know he will be assessed-- but his parent is told-- the student's anxiety increases and performance worsens.
Perhaps they don't know this about college students:
"The vast majority of college students are feeling stressed these days, and significant numbers are at risk of depression, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll. Eighty-five percent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits..." says the May 21 Associated Press article on newsvine.com.
Instead of bringing college- and high school-stressors to kindergarten, we should look at what matters most for thriving in life. The data is very clear: academic performance is not a good predictor of a lifetime of flourishing. To thrive in the future economy we need less fact- regurgitating and more creativity. To help our children thrive in life, we need to stop worrying about test scores and start encouraging them to increase positive emotion by developing their gifts and strengths.
Why is it that schools from college to kindergarten aren't measuring the results that matter: how their graduates fare in life? When you look at many years of real-life data you find a very different picture than most of us are usually given. Positive emotion predicts creativity, longevity, physical health, relationship satisfaction and career success. Let's start kids on the right path and focus on what will matter most for their lives.
Alternatives to Anti-depressants
My articles and videos are now posted on my new website: www.christineduvivier.com. You can find this article here.
Jeanne Mayell’s recent column in The Wellesley Townsman alerted parents to the teen suicide risks of anti-depressants. She said, “…they found that after being on the drug for many months, significantly more people became suicidal on the antidepressant than on the placebo.” This naturally leads to the question: are there alternatives? The short answer is: yes. Several alternatives exist for treating depression and I will discuss them below. Equally important, though, are the options for preventing depression-- and I will talk about these in the next article.
Before going further, you need to know that I am not a medical professional. I have a masters' in Positive Psychology and additional training in optimism and resilience. My intent here is to provide information for parents who want to research anti-depressant alternatives and particularly for those who want to prevent teen depression. Please talk with a physician or clinical psychologist before deciding upon the best approach for your teen.
Why It Matters
Depression is at an all-time high: incidences have increased 1000% in 50 years [note: for those who wonder if the increase is due to better reporting, it is not]. Sadly, depression now starts earlier: the average age of onset has gone from age 30 to age 14.5. It is estimated that 20% of high school students (240 in a school of 1200) will have a serious depressive episode.
While 20% --one in five teens-- is a high rate, this does not even include the students who have some symptoms of depression or anxiety. In 1988, researcher Jean Twenge found that “normal kids” showed more symptoms of anxiety than psychiatric patients in the 1950s. Data from the Penn Resiliency Program showed middle school students with depressive symptoms, who were not yet clinically depressed. These symptoms doubled in two years when left untreated.
Treating Depression
Clearly we need effective, low-risk treatments. Fortunately, there are three approaches, besides anti-depressants, that parents can consider: 1) Homeopathy, 2) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and 3) Positive Interventions.
Homeopathy is a natural medical approach developed by a physician in the 1850s. It has not had the same level of study that pharmaceuticals have had, so parents need to understand it carefully before deciding on the approach they feel is best for their children. For parents seeking an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs, however, this may be an option. It works somewhat like a vaccine, using infinitesimal amounts of natural substances that trigger the individual’s system to heal itself (quantum physics principles can explain how it works). Homeopathy has been used to treat depression in teens. Two local homeopaths are Jerry Kantor in Wellesley and Mathilde Flores in Maynard, MA.
Another approach is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), a psychotherapy approach that has been used for over 30 years. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck showed that it is our thoughts—specifically the way we explain events to ourselves—that causes depression. With CBT, an individual is guided to change their damaging thought patterns. Studies have shown that CBT is as effective as anti-depressants in many cases.
Positive Interventions are a third alternative and potentially the most powerful. In one study, 12 weeks of psychotherapy using Positive Interventions worked better than a combination of anti-depressants and traditional therapy. In a second study of college students with moderate depression, Positive Interventions-- used for six weeks-- reduced depressive symptoms significantly and increased life satisfaction. The effects lasted for the full year of follow-on testing, which is longer than typically expected. These studies were done by Marty Seligman, Tayyab Rashid, and Acacia Parks at the University of Pennsylvania (American Psychologist, 2006).
Treating depression effectively, without putting our children at increased risk, is critically important, but it is not enough. Far better is to prevent depression from occurring in the first place and I will discuss this in the next article.
Resources
For more information on the alternatives above, please click on the following links:
Homeopathy:
http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/sad.aspx
CBT:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/12/12/get-healthier-and-happier.html?PageNr=2
Positive Interventions in Psychotherapy: http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/positivepsychotherapyarticle.pdf
My Website: www.positiveleaders.com
Jeanne Mayell’s recent column in The Wellesley Townsman alerted parents to the teen suicide risks of anti-depressants. She said, “…they found that after being on the drug for many months, significantly more people became suicidal on the antidepressant than on the placebo.” This naturally leads to the question: are there alternatives? The short answer is: yes. Several alternatives exist for treating depression and I will discuss them below. Equally important, though, are the options for preventing depression-- and I will talk about these in the next article.
Before going further, you need to know that I am not a medical professional. I have a masters' in Positive Psychology and additional training in optimism and resilience. My intent here is to provide information for parents who want to research anti-depressant alternatives and particularly for those who want to prevent teen depression. Please talk with a physician or clinical psychologist before deciding upon the best approach for your teen.
Why It Matters
Depression is at an all-time high: incidences have increased 1000% in 50 years [note: for those who wonder if the increase is due to better reporting, it is not]. Sadly, depression now starts earlier: the average age of onset has gone from age 30 to age 14.5. It is estimated that 20% of high school students (240 in a school of 1200) will have a serious depressive episode.
While 20% --one in five teens-- is a high rate, this does not even include the students who have some symptoms of depression or anxiety. In 1988, researcher Jean Twenge found that “normal kids” showed more symptoms of anxiety than psychiatric patients in the 1950s. Data from the Penn Resiliency Program showed middle school students with depressive symptoms, who were not yet clinically depressed. These symptoms doubled in two years when left untreated.
Treating Depression
Clearly we need effective, low-risk treatments. Fortunately, there are three approaches, besides anti-depressants, that parents can consider: 1) Homeopathy, 2) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and 3) Positive Interventions.
Homeopathy is a natural medical approach developed by a physician in the 1850s. It has not had the same level of study that pharmaceuticals have had, so parents need to understand it carefully before deciding on the approach they feel is best for their children. For parents seeking an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs, however, this may be an option. It works somewhat like a vaccine, using infinitesimal amounts of natural substances that trigger the individual’s system to heal itself (quantum physics principles can explain how it works). Homeopathy has been used to treat depression in teens. Two local homeopaths are Jerry Kantor in Wellesley and Mathilde Flores in Maynard, MA.
Another approach is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), a psychotherapy approach that has been used for over 30 years. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck showed that it is our thoughts—specifically the way we explain events to ourselves—that causes depression. With CBT, an individual is guided to change their damaging thought patterns. Studies have shown that CBT is as effective as anti-depressants in many cases.
Positive Interventions are a third alternative and potentially the most powerful. In one study, 12 weeks of psychotherapy using Positive Interventions worked better than a combination of anti-depressants and traditional therapy. In a second study of college students with moderate depression, Positive Interventions-- used for six weeks-- reduced depressive symptoms significantly and increased life satisfaction. The effects lasted for the full year of follow-on testing, which is longer than typically expected. These studies were done by Marty Seligman, Tayyab Rashid, and Acacia Parks at the University of Pennsylvania (American Psychologist, 2006).
Treating depression effectively, without putting our children at increased risk, is critically important, but it is not enough. Far better is to prevent depression from occurring in the first place and I will discuss this in the next article.
Resources
For more information on the alternatives above, please click on the following links:
Homeopathy:
http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/sad.aspx
CBT:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/12/12/get-healthier-and-happier.html?PageNr=2
Positive Interventions in Psychotherapy: http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/positivepsychotherapyarticle.pdf
My Website: www.positiveleaders.com
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