How to Help Your Kids Thrive

Parenting isn’t easy, is it? How can you help your children live their best lives? One thing you can do is to positively influence their self-narratives.

According to Timothy Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, the way in which we interpret the world influences our behavior. These interpretations are the result of personal narratives we create about ourselves. Healthy narratives can lead to greater happiness and success in life.

In his book, Redirect, Wilson discusses how story editing can be used to redirect people’s narratives about themselves and the world. As parents, we can use this technique to shape our children’s narratives. Here are two different approaches:

Labeling

Labeling can help kids internalize desired values by providing them with the right label for their behavior. When your child does something wrong, the best way to respond is to say you understand how guilty he or she must feel. This causes children to internalize the motivation to be good. They conclude they must feel guilty because they are good kids who don’t want to do the wrong thing.

Adam Grant explains how we can use labeling to encourage generosity in our children. When we notice them do something nice, instead of saying, “That was really helpful”, we should say, “You were really helpful.” In this way they will come to see themselves as givers. Research found that students whose teacher consistently labeled them as people who don’t litter were less likely to litter than other students.

Story Prompting

With story prompting we give information to people that changes their interpretation of themselves or the word. When your children get good grades you should praise them for their effort. This prompts them to have a growth mindset or the belief that abilities can be developed through hard work. Praising them for being smart can lead to a fixed mindset where they believe abilities are fixed traits that can’t be changed.

What about when your child does poorly on a test? She may conclude she isn’t smart enough for advanced math and quit trying. If instead you talk to her teacher who explains that most students struggle with the first unit, but get better over time, your daughter is more likely to keep studying.

Story editing can trigger a positive cycle of self-reinforcing thinking and behaving. Help your children create constructive self-narratives by labeling their behavior and providing them with story prompts that lead to more empowering interpretations of events.