Q&A with Judith Danovitch!

1. What inspired you to become a psychologist? 

I think I was always interest in cognitive development (although I didn't know it was called that) because I grew up speaking three languages at home, and I often wondered how that was possible and why it was easy for me. In college, I worked in a psychology lab and taught children in different settings and I realized how much I loved working with children and how interesting it would be to try to understand their thinking processes.

2. What is your favorite part about doing research?

My favorite part of research is collecting data and seeing the results. It is so much fun to hear what children have to say, and it is exciting to discover new aspects of how their minds work.

3. What research finding do you think is most important for parents to know?

I think the research on temperament is extremely valuable for parents. Temperament basically means that different children react to the same experience in different ways. So, for example, one child might experience a roller coaster ride as fun while another child finds it terrifying. I think if parents understood this better, they would be more appreciative of their child's individuality and be less likely to compare their child to other children.

4. What goal do you hope to accomplish with your research?

I hope to give parents, educators, and the general public new insights into how children think at different points in their development. 

Raising Successful Children

           Everyone wants to be a great parent, but what are some of the best ways to raise happy and successful children? The optimal parent is one who is involved, but not too involved, one who is responsive to their child’s needs and sets high expectations, but respects their child’s independence. Children of these “authoritative” parents perform better academically, physically, and socially. By not being overly involved, your child will develop higher confidence and motivation.

In one study, a researcher gave children a simple puzzle to solve and only some of the children were told how bright and capable they were. Children who were not given the praise were more motivated to tackle more difficult puzzles, showed higher levels of confidence and greater overall progress in puzzle-solving. These results show that praising talents and abilities actually decreases a child’s confidence because they risk losing their status by trying more difficult puzzles. Other studies have shown similar findings, for example, supporting a child’s independence and limiting parental involvement results in better academic and emotional outcomes.

Parents of successful and happy children did not do for the child what the child could do or could almost do themselves. Children face challenges everyday that they must learn to overcome on their own without their parent taking over. Parents must understand that their children need to experience successful failures, or failures that the child can live with and grow from. Depriving children of challenges also deprives them from learning the skills they’ll need to survive in life. Not everything in a child’s life is always going to go according to plan, so parents must learn to accept this and allow their child to be independent.

Overparenting can be detrimental to a child’s confidence, motivation, and independence. Children flourish when their environment is reliable, consistent, available, and noninterfering. Allowing children to make mistakes can be anxiety-provoking for parents, but parents must learn to control their anxiety to allow their children to manage the given situation on their own. Unhappy and unfulfilled parents are more likely to be prone to overparenting, so make sure your needs are also met in order to be the very best parent you can be. Happy parenting!

Click here to read a more in-depth article on this topic from the New York Times! 

Excessive Praise May Actually Be Harmful to Children

    Over the years, more and more research has focused on the effects of praise across a variety of situations. Praise has been used as a motivator and it often acts as a reward for children, but recent research raises questions about the effects of excessive praise on children's behavior. Turns out that excessive praise may be detrimental to children with low self-esteem. Adults are twice as likely to use excessive praise towards children with low self-esteem, in comparison to children with high self-esteem. This makes sense because adults often want to give additional praise to the children that seem to need it most, however, this appears to have the opposite effect on children with low self-esteem.
    In one recent study, children drew a Van Gogh picture, and were either given: inflated praise (e.g. "You did an incredibly great job!"), non-inflated praise (e.g. "You did a great job!"), or no praise by a professional painter. Then, children were given the choice to draw one of two types of pictures: an easier picture where they wouldn't learn much, or a difficult picture where they would make lots of mistakes but would also learn a lot. Children with low self-esteem who received inflated praise were more likely to choose the easier picture to draw.
    So what exactly is inflated praise doing to children with low self-esteem? Praise sends a message about future standards and expectations. When a child with low self-esteem hears excessive, inflated praise, they feel that they must do exceptionally well or else they will disappoint others, therefore they shy away from challenges that could result in failure. So, it seems that, like with many things, the best practice is to praise in moderation - don't overdo it.

    To learn more about these studies and what others are saying about them, please visit the following links:

“Stop Heaping Praise on Your Kids”  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/stop-heaping-praise-on-your-kids/2014/01/06/84a9a2fe-7710-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html

“When Praise Hurts: The Psychology of Gushing”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/when-praise-hurts-the-psy_b_4269342.html

Project Update!

The MSU Minds, Attitudes, and Parenting project is pleased to announce that we've reached the midpoint of our study, and have had a great turn out thus far! Over 65 children and their parents have participated in our study over the last six months. Interesting results between children's behaviors, their brain activity, and their parents' attitudes are beginning to emerge. We will be presenting some of these findings at the upcoming meetings of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco and at the Intellectual Humility conference in Saint Louis. We're very excited about the data we have collected already and are even more excited to see what the next six months will bring! Thank you to everyone who has already participated in this study and to those that have helped spread the word about our research! It has been a pleasure working with the families and we hope the results of our study will provide helpful information in return in the not too distant future. In the coming year, we hope to begin posting results from our study and, begin providing workshops and events to inform the public about our research. Until then, we are still looking for children and parents to participate over the next six months, so please continue spreading the word about the MSU MAP project. For more details about this research study, feel free to e-mail us at msukidlab@gmail.com or visit our website at www.msumap.org .

How do we know what other people think?

A recent study found that reading fiction improved adults’ ability to figure out what other people are feeling. Knowing what other people feel or think is a skill psychologists call “theory of mind” and it turns out to be an important part of social interaction. Theory of mind begins developing in infancy, and it continues improving throughout childhood.

One of the goals of the MSU MAP project is to better understand how the development of theory of mind relates to children’s thinking about their own knowledge.

Although we don’t know whether reading fiction also improves children’s theory of mind, there is plenty of evidence that reading has other benefits for children thinking and reasoning skills. Looking for good books to read with your child? Check out the New York Public Library’s recent list of 100 great children’s books: http://www.nypl.org/childrens100

Comment below with some of your favorite children's books!

Picture of the Week!

Below is a picture of our child-friendly waiting room here at the KID Lab.