Optimistic Children Are Much More Motivated and Resilient part I
from a book called Peak Performance for Smart Kids by Maureen Neihart, 2008
Optimistic children persevere even through challenging circumstances because they have a positive explanatory style. Pessimistic children tend to be less resilient, more depressed, and achieve less in their lifetimes than optimistic children.
Optimism is a hopeful outlook that is grounded in reality which keeps hope and motivation high. Motivation is tied to how children think and talk to themselves about their success and failure experiences. How children interpret events (their explanatory style) contributes to their sense of helplessness or of empowerment.
Optimism can be learned. You can help develop your children’s optimism so they will bounce back easily from setbacks and continue to strive when success does not come easily. This is especially important for smart kids who often begin to feel that being smart means that learning is easy so when they come to a situation where learning is not so easy instead of persevering they often give up, thinking that they’re not very smart after all.
Explanatory styles are categorized as optimistic or pessimistic with most children somewhere on the continuum between the two. It is so important to help move your child toward an optimistic style of thinking positively about day to day events in his or her life.
Explanatory style has three dimensions: 1.) permanence, 2.) pervasiveness, and 3.) personalization. Each has to do with how children think about the causes of positive and negative events in their lives.
1.) The first dimension of explanatory style is ‘permanence’; it refers to whether children see the causes of events as temporary or permanent.
When things go badly, pessimists believe the causes of their disappointment will never change. Their motivation decreases sharply and they become discouraged. Why keep trying if things are never going to change? They think in terms of never and always: “I’ll never make the team.” “I’ll always be too slow to play basketball.” “My teacher doesn’t like me.” “This is never going to end.”
Optimists, on the other hand, view setbacks as temporary. They think in terms of sometimes and recently. “Sometimes gymnastics can be really difficult.” “She’s just in a bad mood today.” ‘I’ve been really stressed lately so it was hard for me to concentrate.” “I’ll do better next time.” Optimistic children are more likely to persevere because they feel hopeful things will change. They see the causes of their disappointment as time limited, so they remain encouraged and energized; ready to try again.
When things go well, optimists believe the causes of their success are permanent; they take credit for their success. When they succeed optimists say things to themselves like “I got an A on that paper because I’m a good writer.” “I bet I’m going to win the county competition now too.” “I was able to block the goal because I’m a natural athlete.”
When things go well for pessimists, they think of it as only temporary; they think of their success as a fluke. “It was just a lucky shot.’ “I’ll never be able to do that again.”
2.) The second dimension of explanatory style is ‘pervasiveness’. It refers to projecting causes across many different situations.
Pessimists tend to generalize the causes of bad events. They tend to catastrophize and see their whole world unraveling when one bad event occurs. They tend to give up. They say things like “Teachers are unfair.” “Coach just has it in for the defense.” ‘I’ll never get good enough grades to go to college.” “My whole life stinks.”
Optimists tend to limit the effects on themselves of a bad outcome. So when things don’t go well they compartmentalize their problems so they can move on without being unduly discouraged. They remain engaged with difficult tasks even when they don’t like what’s happening. They say things like “I just had a bad day, that’s all.” “The coach is upset about how we played this inning.” “I don’t like the way Ms. Smith graded this test; it’s not fair.” “We lost that round, but we’ll get the next one”.
When pessimists are successful they tend to localize the causes, which limits the effects of their success. With a pessimistic outlook success does not increase the chances of future successes. They say things like: “I’m good at throwing free shots but I can’t dribble at all or make good passes or interceptions.” “I got an A on the paper but that’s because it was for science class; the only class I do well in.” .”I know my multiplication facts but I can’t do word problems at all.” This kind of thinking limits confidence and the chances of future or broader successes.
When optimists succeed they tend to generalize the causes of their success. This kind of thinking – generalizing from a specific success to broader triumphs - builds confidence and increases the chance of future successes.. A child who does well on a math test may say “I’m really good at math.” or “I’m a good test taker.” “I’m getting better all the time.”
3.) The third dimension of explanatory style is ‘personalization’. It refers to a child’s beliefs about who or what is responsible for events. Children either believe that they’re responsible for their own succcess or failure or they believe that external factors are responsible.
Pessimists blame themselves when things go badly. Some of these children are so hard on themselves when they experience failure that it is very difficult for them to recover. They attack their own character in such a way that it makes it very difficult for them to try again or even being able to examine their mistakes. They say things like ”I’m so stupid.” “I’m a total jerk.” “What made me think I could do that anyway? I’ll never try that again.”
Pessimists don’t take credit, or don’t take enough credit, when they succeed. Their self confidence never really has a chance to grow. Even if others give them credit they refuse to accept it seriously. They say things like “I only won because the judges were so easy.” “Some of the other kids play better than I do but they must’ve had a bad day today.” “The test wasn’t hard.” “It ‘s not important”. “It doesn’t matter.” “Nobody cares about that.”
Optimists give credit to themselves when they succeed. They acknowledge their accomplishments. They say things like “I’ve been practicing really hard, that’s why I did so well today.” “I spent hours and hours working on this project; I wanted it to be my very best.”
When optimists fail they acknowledge outside factors but they also hold themselves accountable for their own mistakes. They acknowledge the need to address those personal factors but they do it without disparaging their entire character. They differentiate between their character and their behavior. They say things like “I was up too late last night. Next time I need to get some good sleep before a big game.” “I didn’t place because I made too many errors. If I practice more, next time I’ll do better.” “If I had done everything on the assignment checklist I would have gotten an A on the project.”
Optimistic children persevere even through challenging circumstances because they have a positive explanatory style. Pessimistic children tend to be less resilient, more depressed, and achieve less in their lifetimes than optimistic children.
Optimism is a hopeful outlook that is grounded in reality which keeps hope and motivation high. Motivation is tied to how children think and talk to themselves about their success and failure experiences. How children interpret events (their explanatory style) contributes to their sense of helplessness or of empowerment.
Optimism can be learned. You can help develop your children’s optimism so they will bounce back easily from setbacks and continue to strive when success does not come easily. This is especially important for smart kids who often begin to feel that being smart means that learning is easy so when they come to a situation where learning is not so easy instead of persevering they often give up, thinking that they’re not very smart after all.
Explanatory styles are categorized as optimistic or pessimistic with most children somewhere on the continuum between the two. It is so important to help move your child toward an optimistic style of thinking positively about day to day events in his or her life.
Explanatory style has three dimensions: 1.) permanence, 2.) pervasiveness, and 3.) personalization. Each has to do with how children think about the causes of positive and negative events in their lives.
1.) The first dimension of explanatory style is ‘permanence’; it refers to whether children see the causes of events as temporary or permanent.
When things go badly, pessimists believe the causes of their disappointment will never change. Their motivation decreases sharply and they become discouraged. Why keep trying if things are never going to change? They think in terms of never and always: “I’ll never make the team.” “I’ll always be too slow to play basketball.” “My teacher doesn’t like me.” “This is never going to end.”
Optimists, on the other hand, view setbacks as temporary. They think in terms of sometimes and recently. “Sometimes gymnastics can be really difficult.” “She’s just in a bad mood today.” ‘I’ve been really stressed lately so it was hard for me to concentrate.” “I’ll do better next time.” Optimistic children are more likely to persevere because they feel hopeful things will change. They see the causes of their disappointment as time limited, so they remain encouraged and energized; ready to try again.
When things go well, optimists believe the causes of their success are permanent; they take credit for their success. When they succeed optimists say things to themselves like “I got an A on that paper because I’m a good writer.” “I bet I’m going to win the county competition now too.” “I was able to block the goal because I’m a natural athlete.”
When things go well for pessimists, they think of it as only temporary; they think of their success as a fluke. “It was just a lucky shot.’ “I’ll never be able to do that again.”
2.) The second dimension of explanatory style is ‘pervasiveness’. It refers to projecting causes across many different situations.
Pessimists tend to generalize the causes of bad events. They tend to catastrophize and see their whole world unraveling when one bad event occurs. They tend to give up. They say things like “Teachers are unfair.” “Coach just has it in for the defense.” ‘I’ll never get good enough grades to go to college.” “My whole life stinks.”
Optimists tend to limit the effects on themselves of a bad outcome. So when things don’t go well they compartmentalize their problems so they can move on without being unduly discouraged. They remain engaged with difficult tasks even when they don’t like what’s happening. They say things like “I just had a bad day, that’s all.” “The coach is upset about how we played this inning.” “I don’t like the way Ms. Smith graded this test; it’s not fair.” “We lost that round, but we’ll get the next one”.
When pessimists are successful they tend to localize the causes, which limits the effects of their success. With a pessimistic outlook success does not increase the chances of future successes. They say things like: “I’m good at throwing free shots but I can’t dribble at all or make good passes or interceptions.” “I got an A on the paper but that’s because it was for science class; the only class I do well in.” .”I know my multiplication facts but I can’t do word problems at all.” This kind of thinking limits confidence and the chances of future or broader successes.
When optimists succeed they tend to generalize the causes of their success. This kind of thinking – generalizing from a specific success to broader triumphs - builds confidence and increases the chance of future successes.. A child who does well on a math test may say “I’m really good at math.” or “I’m a good test taker.” “I’m getting better all the time.”
3.) The third dimension of explanatory style is ‘personalization’. It refers to a child’s beliefs about who or what is responsible for events. Children either believe that they’re responsible for their own succcess or failure or they believe that external factors are responsible.
Pessimists blame themselves when things go badly. Some of these children are so hard on themselves when they experience failure that it is very difficult for them to recover. They attack their own character in such a way that it makes it very difficult for them to try again or even being able to examine their mistakes. They say things like ”I’m so stupid.” “I’m a total jerk.” “What made me think I could do that anyway? I’ll never try that again.”
Pessimists don’t take credit, or don’t take enough credit, when they succeed. Their self confidence never really has a chance to grow. Even if others give them credit they refuse to accept it seriously. They say things like “I only won because the judges were so easy.” “Some of the other kids play better than I do but they must’ve had a bad day today.” “The test wasn’t hard.” “It ‘s not important”. “It doesn’t matter.” “Nobody cares about that.”
Optimists give credit to themselves when they succeed. They acknowledge their accomplishments. They say things like “I’ve been practicing really hard, that’s why I did so well today.” “I spent hours and hours working on this project; I wanted it to be my very best.”
When optimists fail they acknowledge outside factors but they also hold themselves accountable for their own mistakes. They acknowledge the need to address those personal factors but they do it without disparaging their entire character. They differentiate between their character and their behavior. They say things like “I was up too late last night. Next time I need to get some good sleep before a big game.” “I didn’t place because I made too many errors. If I practice more, next time I’ll do better.” “If I had done everything on the assignment checklist I would have gotten an A on the project.”
Optimistic Children Are Much More Motivated and Resilient part II
from a book called Peak Performance for Smart Kids by Maureen Neihart, 2008
Optimistic children persevere even through challenging circumstances because they have a positive explanatory style. Pessimistic children tend to be less resilient, more depressed, and achieve less in their lifetimes than optimistic children.
Optimism is a hopeful outlook that is grounded in reality which keeps hope and motivation high. Motivation is tied to how children think and talk to themselves about their success and failure experiences. How children interpret events (their explanatory style) contributes to their sense of helplessness or of empowerment.
Optimism can be learned. You can help develop your children’s optimism so they will bounce back easily from setbacks and continue to strive when success does not come easily. This is especially important for smart kids who often begin to feel that being smart means that learning is easy so when they come to a situation where learning is not so easy instead of persevering they often give up, thinking that they’re not very smart after all.
Explanatory styles are categorized as optimistic or pessimistic with most children somewhere on the continuum between the two. It is so important to help move your child toward an optimistic style of thinking positively about day to day events in his or her life.
Explanatory style has three dimensions: 1.) permanence, 2.) pervasiveness, and 3.) personalization. Each has to do with how children think about the causes of positive and negative events in their lives.
1.) The first dimension of explanatory style is ‘permanence’; it refers to whether children see the causes of events as temporary or permanent.
When things go badly, pessimists believe the causes of their disappointment will never change. Their motivation decreases sharply and they become discouraged. Why keep trying if things are never going to change? They think in terms of never and always: “I’ll never make the team.” “I’ll always be too slow to play basketball.” “My teacher doesn’t like me.” “This is never going to end.”
Optimists, on the other hand, view setbacks as temporary. They think in terms of sometimes and recently. “Sometimes gymnastics can be really difficult.” “She’s just in a bad mood today.” ‘I’ve been really stressed lately so it was hard for me to concentrate.” “I’ll do better next time.” Optimistic children are more likely to persevere because they feel hopeful things will change. They see the causes of their disappointment as time limited, so they remain encouraged and energized; ready to try again.
When things go well, optimists believe the causes of their success are permanent; they take credit for their success. When they succeed optimists say things to themselves like “I got an A on that paper because I’m a good writer.” “I bet I’m going to win the county competition now too.” “I was able to block the goal because I’m a natural athlete.”
When things go well for pessimists, they think of it as only temporary; they think of their success as a fluke. “It was just a lucky shot.’ “I’ll never be able to do that again.”
2.) The second dimension of explanatory style is ‘pervasiveness’. It refers to projecting causes across many different situations.
Pessimists tend to generalize the causes of bad events. They tend to catastrophize and see their whole world unraveling when one bad event occurs. They tend to give up. They say things like “Teachers are unfair.” “Coach just has it in for the defense.” ‘I’ll never get good enough grades to go to college.” “My whole life stinks.”
Optimists tend to limit the effects on themselves of a bad outcome. So when things don’t go well they compartmentalize their problems so they can move on without being unduly discouraged. They remain engaged with difficult tasks even when they don’t like what’s happening. They say things like “I just had a bad day, that’s all.” “The coach is upset about how we played this inning.” “I don’t like the way Ms. Smith graded this test; it’s not fair.” “We lost that round, but we’ll get the next one”.
When pessimists are successful they tend to localize the causes, which limits the effects of their success. With a pessimistic outlook success does not increase the chances of future successes. They say things like: “I’m good at throwing free shots but I can’t dribble at all or make good passes or interceptions.” “I got an A on the paper but that’s because it was for science class; the only class I do well in.” .”I know my multiplication facts but I can’t do word problems at all.” This kind of thinking limits confidence and the chances of future or broader successes.
When optimists succeed they tend to generalize the causes of their success. This kind of thinking – generalizing from a specific success to broader triumphs - builds confidence and increases the chance of future successes.. A child who does well on a math test may say “I’m really good at math.” or “I’m a good test taker.” “I’m getting better all the time.”
3.) The third dimension of explanatory style is ‘personalization’. It refers to a child’s beliefs about who or what is responsible for events. Children either believe that they’re responsible for their own succcess or failure or they believe that external factors are responsible.
Pessimists blame themselves when things go badly. Some of these children are so hard on themselves when they experience failure that it is very difficult for them to recover. They attack their own character in such a way that it makes it very difficult for them to try again or even being able to examine their mistakes. They say things like ”I’m so stupid.” “I’m a total jerk.” “What made me think I could do that anyway? I’ll never try that again.”
Pessimists don’t take credit, or don’t take enough credit, when they succeed. Their self confidence never really has a chance to grow. Even if others give them credit they refuse to accept it seriously. They say things like “I only won because the judges were so easy.” “Some of the other kids play better than I do but they must’ve had a bad day today.” “The test wasn’t hard.” “It ‘s not important”. “It doesn’t matter.” “Nobody cares about that.”
Optimists give credit to themselves when they succeed. They acknowledge their accomplishments. They say things like “I’ve been practicing really hard, that’s why I did so well today.” “I spent hours and hours working on this project; I wanted it to be my very best.”
When optimists fail they acknowledge outside factors but they also hold themselves accountable for their own mistakes. They acknowledge the need to address those personal factors but they do it without disparaging their entire character. They differentiate between their character and their behavior. They say things like “I was up too late last night. Next time I need to get some good sleep before a big game.” “I didn’t place because I made too many errors. If I practice more, next time I’ll do better.” “If I had done everything on the assignment checklist I would have gotten an A on the project.”
What You Can Do to Help Your Child Stay
Motivated and Optimistic part III
from a book called Peak Performance for Smart Kids by Maureen Neihart, 2008
Optimism can be learned. You can help develop your children’s optimism and promote stronger performance by teaching them to think positively about their day to day experiences. You can be your children’s optimism coach, just … 1.) Talk, 2.) Listen, and 3. Teach.
1.) The first thing to remember when you’re the optimism coach – watch what you say and make sure you’re modeling optimism. How optimistic are you? Go to www.authentichappiness.org and click on the optimism test. (You will need to register but it’s easy and free.) Refer to the first part of this article to review explanatory style to better understand what your test results mean. Affirm your children with permanent and pervasive messages when they are succeeding, not when they are struggling or misbehaving. “You’ll have to practice more if you want to really win this.” “Your memory is getting better and better.” “You acted without thinking, next time stop and think about the consequences.” “You play like a champion.” “You struggled because you lost your concentration.”
2.) Secondly, listen carefully to your children when they talk about their successes and disappointments. To what do they attribute their victories and defeats? Are their explanations constructive or destructive? Listen carefully. Do they pat themselves on the back when they do well? Are they limiting their success or generalizing it? When they’re not happy with the job they’ve done, do they tend to think of the causes as permanent or temporary? Once you’re familiar with your child’s explanatory style you’ll be ready to begin coaching them on to a more optimistic outlook.
3.) Discouraged children often give up easily because they have trouble seeing more than one reason for failure and that one reason is usually personal and permanent. Children blame themselves for their disappointments and setbacks. As their coach it’s your job to teach them to consider many possible explanations, not just that they personally have failed. Read the book The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman for many more suggestions and ideas.
Example A: A 6 year old is devastated because she didn’t get invited to a classmate’s birthday party. When she stops crying, her mother gets out paper and crayons and invites her to sit with her at the table. She asks the girl to choose a crayon and draw a large circle. “I like how big you made it”, she says. “Now draw a line through the middle to divide the circle in two parts.” The girl draws the line and asks “What are we making, a pizza?” “Yes, your favorite kind” says her mom. “Now let’s cut this pizza into lots of pieces.” The girl draws more lines to make more pieces. Her mom then tells her “You know there are many reasons children don’t get invited to a party. Can you tell me one reason?” “Because they don’t like them,” says the child. “That’s one reason, can you think of other reasons?“ says the mom. “Because they don’t want them to come to their party.” “That’s 2 reasons. I can think of another reason – because her mom said she could only invite 6 people to her party.” “Oh, that’s 3 reasons,” said the girl. “I’ll write the reasons on the pizza slices that you drew.” Mom says. “Let’s think up some more reasons. Do you remember why we didn’t invite all the kids in your class to your party?” “It was a girls party,” says the girl. In ten minutes they came up with 8 different reasons why someone might not be invited to a party.
Example B: A 12 year old doesn’t want to audition for a part in the school musical even though he’s a good singer and has enjoyed being in performances before. He says he won’t be selected, he won’t get a part so why should he even try. As his father talks with him and questions his thinking he asks what would it mean if you didn’t get selected? The boy at first says he doesn’t know but eventually responds that it would mean that he’s not a good singer. The father goes on to tell him there are many reasons why someone might not get a part in an audition. Together they come up with other reasons such as: their appearance (too tall or too short, too young or too old, boy or girl) just doesn’t fit the part of the character in the production. Maybe their voice isn’t right for the part. Maybe even though you’re a very good singer, a better singer auditioned too or your performance wasn’t up to your best that day for some reason (you have a cold, you’re nervous, you didn’t practice the piece as much as you should have, you were distracted, etc). The father ends the conversation by pointing out that auditions are very competitive and the only way to get better at auditions is to audition a lot. If you want to sing on stage you need to develop your ability to audition well and try out many times at many different auditions. The boy agrees that it can’t hurt to try. And the dad ends with Give it your best shot and see what happens. If you get it great!. If you don’t get the part, you will still have learned from the experience.
Example C: You can make use of many other examples that you’ll find in stories, TV shows, movies, family life and within your child’s circle of acquaintances.