Tag Archive for cooperation

Teach Your Children How to “Mind Read”

“Mind reading” is one of the most important skills our children can learn. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about crystal ball stuff or telepathy. I mean developing what psychologists call a “theory of mind”—the ability to understand and take the perspective of another person’s feelings and intentions. This “theory of mind” or “mind reading” skill, is not related to intelligence and, even better, can be improved with practice.

What makes “mind reading” so important? For one thing, a recent study showed that “mind reading” skills improve a person’s ability to cooperate with others. It made it easier for them to understand the other person and get in sync with them. It also helped them to recover more quickly when they got out of sync with the other person. “Mind reading” (have a strong theory of mind) also helps a person have greater empathy and greater understanding of the other person’s beliefs and motives.

You can imagine how this “mind reading” skill can benefit relationships with friends, a future spouse, and family. The question becomes: how can we help our children develop beneficial mind reading skills? Good question. Here’s four actions that can get us started.

  • Develop a strong, positive attachment with your child. A strong relationship begins with being aware of your children. Recognize when they are hungry. Remain aware of their emotions. Learn and practice an awareness of their perspective of the world. The next step is to go beyond simple awareness and respond to your child based on that awareness. If you recognize they are hungry, ask if they want a snack. If you see they are tired, encourage them to rest. If they look angry, ask and talk about their feelings. As you practice your theory of mind in this way, your child will learn from your example.
  • Engage in pretend play with your child. Pretend play allows your child to “try on” various perspectives, learning to “think” and “feel” like a fireman, a princess, a mom, a teacher. They practice a wide range of emotions by being angry like a parent, firm like a teacher, scared like a puppy, majestic like a princess, heroic like a superhero, or any number of other imaginary scenarios. They also practice various ways of expressing emotions. Moreover, they can pretend to argue and disagree, learning to “see” the other person’s emotions and thoughts and respond appropriately. All in all, in pretend play our children try on different ways of interacting with the world and so develop a greater ability to “mind read.”
  • Read books and tell stories. Once again, delving into a book and becoming immersed in the characters allows our children to experience another person’s world and so “read their mind” to know their thoughts and emotions. Talk about the characters in the stories. Discuss how they feel, how they express their feelings, how thoughts and situations contribute to those feelings, and how their actions reflect their feelings. You can also discuss whether other responses may have better expressed the feelings to others. This can help them learn to “mind read” and manage their own emotions as well.
  • Talk about emotions, thoughts, and behaviors with your children. Make emotions an open topic for discussion. Learn about the possible thoughts and situations behind various emotions as well as the actions, both positive and negative, that can flow from those thoughts and emotions. Help your children see beyond the surface to the underlying motives and intentions, the hurt and sorrow, joy and celebration behind people’s statements and actions. Talk about your own emotions as well as your children’s emotions and the emotions of characters in movies, their friends, and other people in their lives. Doing so opens their lives to accept the perspectives and emotions of others. It builds their ability to cooperate and have empathy.  

These four actions can help increase your child’s ability to “mind read” (and your ability as well). Even better, this will result in an increased ability to show empathy and cooperate as well. Don’t we need a little more empathy and cooperation in our world? Let it begin in our homes.

4 Simple Ways to Build Cooperation with Your Children

As parents, we teach our children to help around the house, to become part of the household, to cooperate with chores. When we successfully involve our children in “running the household,” they develop a growing sense of value, purpose, and competence (If your children don’t know, send them this letter: Dear Children, The Real Reason I Make You Do Chores). In spite of these benefits and all our good intentions, our children rarely say, “Oh cool. Thanks for the work. I love it.” Right? They often respond with complaining, grumbling, some odd body movement or facial expression that elevates us to a surprising level of agitation, or slamming things around. It gets old quick. So, when I can find any hints to help build cooperation, I “swoop ’em up.”  The more options we have as parents, the better off we are. The more tools we own, the more problems we can fix. With that in mind, here are 4 tools to help increase your children’s cooperation around the house.

Give choices. Choices empower our children. Choices also maintain parental authority. What kind of choices can you give?

  • Our children can choose what they’d like to do to help. For instance, “Would you like to set the table for dinner or pour the drinks?” Or, “We have to clean up before our guests arrive. Do you want to clean the tub or run the vacuum?” “Would you rather take a bath or a shower tonight?” 
  • At times, our children can choose the timing of their cooperation. For instance, “Do you want to take a bath before eating your snack or after your snack?” “Would you rather cut the grass today or tomorrow?”
  • They can help make family decisions with their choices. “Would you rather have green beans or corn with dinner tonight?” “Would you rather go to the library today and museum next week or the museum today and the library next week?” You can even include your children in the choice vacation places and times. “We have to decide between camping at the ocean or by the lake. Which do you want to do?” Just be sure you’re willing to take their input seriously.
  • Children can also make choices about clothing and styles. “Do you want to wear this red shirt or the blue one tomorrow?” “Which swimsuit do you want to take to the party?”

Offer a carrot not an ultimatum. Offering a carrot involves the promise of a more enjoyable and preferred activity after the chore is done. For instance, “We’ll head to the park and get some ice cream as soon as your room is cleaned up.” “I’ll get the movie ready and, as soon as you’re done taking out the garbage, we’ll start watching it.” Notice the carrot is offered as an incentive rather than used as a threat of what they might lose. Incentives are kinder than threats. Incentives build cooperation; threats and ultimatums build walls and elicit anger. Offer a carrot.

Be specific with your requests. Let your children know “how many,” “how much,” and “how long.” “Bring the towels to the laundry” may result in them bringing 2 of the 5 dirty towels you wanted followed by them complaining when you telling them to go back for the rest. Start off with a more specific request, “Bring all the dirty towels to the laundry. There are at least 5 of them.” Or, “I need your help for about 15 minutes. Then you’re free to go.” “We need to wash the dishes. It will take about 20 minutes then you can meet your friends.” This specificity gives an end in sight and helps them focus for the time needed to complete the task.      

Be polite.  Everyone is more willing to cooperate when asked politely. Aren’t you? And, your politeness models politeness for your children. Be as polite to your children as you want them to be toward you. It’s a two-way street starting with your politeness toward them. (Read Children: Jesus in the House for more on this 2-way street of politeness.)

Give choices. Offer carrots rather than ultimatums. Be specific in your requests. Be polite. Do these 4 things and you will experience a whole new level of cooperation coming from your children!

Down the Rabbit Hole of Cooperation

Sometimes I am impressed and amazed by the simplest things. For instance, a study on children swinging together recently sent me on a journey down the rabbit hole of cooperation. Let me explain. The University of Washington released a study in which they randomly assigned pairs of four-year-old children (who did not know one another) into one of three groups: in the first group pairs swung in synchrony with one another, in the second group pairs swung “out of synch” with each other, or in the third they didn’t even get to swing (I don’t want to be in that group!). Then, the four-year-old children engaged in a series of tasks to evaluate cooperation. The swinging four-year-olds who swung in synchrony cooperated more than those who swung “out of synch” and those who didn’t swing at all. They “strategized” more often, communicated more effectively, and completed the tasks more quickly. (Read about the study here). With this simple study I embarked on a brief journey down a rabbit hole in search of more information on influencing cooperation. I found:

  1. Joint music-making leads to spontaneous cooperation and increased “helping” behaviors. (Read more here).
  2. Moving in synchrony with an experimenter led infants to be more cooperative with that experimenter (Read more here).

My run down the rabbit hole continued, but you get the idea: engaging in synchronous behavior (moving together, making music together) leads to greater cooperation. So, do you want more cooperative children? Swing in synchrony with them. Dance together. Go for a walk and walk the same cadence…”left, right, left, right, left.” Sing together—the same song in the same key of course. Have fun…together…at the same pace. The result? Children who are more likely to cooperate with you! Now that is worth the fun!