Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

This episode revisits the concept of the 30 Million Word Gap concept, which we first covered in an interview with Dr. Doug Sperry a few weeks back.

After she heard that I was going to talk with Dr. Sperry, Dr. Roberta Golinkoff – with whom we discussed her book Becoming Brilliant almost two years ago now – asked to come back on to present a rebuttal. We’re going to learn a lot more about the importance of child-directed speech!

This episode serves two purposes: it helps us to understand another aspect of the 30 Million Word Gap, and it also demonstrates pretty clearly that scientists – both of whom have the best interests of children at heart – see very different ways of achieving that end.

(04:17) The origin of the 30-million-word gap

(06:32) Addressing children directly is important

(11:47) Kindergarten has become the new first grade.

(17:19) The difference between infant-directed and adult-directed speech.

(39:08) Children also need to be responded to in terms of things that are of interest to them

 

Adair, J.K., Colegrave, K.S-S, & McManus. M.E. (2017). How the word gap argument negatively impacts young children of Latinx immigrants’ conceptualizations of learning. Harvard Educational Review 87(3), 309-334.

Avineri, N., Johnson, E., Brice‐Heath, S., McCarty, T., Ochs, E., Kremer‐Sadlik, T., Blum, S., Zentella, A.C., Rosa, J., Flores, N., Alim, H.S., & Paris, D. (2015). Invited forum: Bridging the “language gap”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25(1), 66-86.

Bassok, D., Latham, S., & Rorem, A. (2016). Is Kindergarten the new first grade? AERA Open 1(4), 1-31.

Baugh, J. (2017). Meaning-less difference: Exposing fallacies and flaws in “The Word Gap” hypothesis that conceal a dangerous “language trap” for low-income American families and their children. International Multilingual Research Journal 11(1), 39-51.

Brennan, W. (2018, April). Julie Washington’s quest to get schools to respect African American English. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/the-code-switcher/554099/

Correa-Chavez, M., & Rogoff, B. (2009). Children’s attention to interactions directed to others: Guatemalan and European American Patterns. Developmental Psychology 45(3), 630-641.

Craig, H.K., & Washington, J.A. (2004). Grade-related changes in the production of African American English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47(2), 450-463.

Gee, J.P. (1985). The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education 167(1), 9-57

Genishi, C., & Dyson, A. (2009). Children, language, and literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times. New York: Teachers College Press.

Golinkoff, R.M., Hoff, E., Rowe, M.L., Tamis-LeMonda, C., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (in press). Language matters: Denying the existence of the 30 Million Word Gap has serious consequences. Child Development.

Lee-James, R., & Washington, J.A. (2018). Language skills of bidialectal and bilingual children: Considering a strengths-based perspective. Topics in Language Disorders 38(1), 5-26.

Long, H. (2017, September 15). African Americans are the only U.S. racial group earning less than in 2000. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-african-americans-income-census-20170918-story.html

NAEP (2017). National student group scores and score gaps (Reading). NAEP. Retrieved from: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2017/#nation/gaps?grade=4

Rogoff, B., Mistry, J., Goncu, A., ,& Mosier, C. (1993). Guided participation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Series No. 236, 58(8), v-173.

Ward, M.C. (1971). Them children: A study in language learning. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Washington, J.A., Branum-Martin, L., Sun, C., & Lee-James, R. (2018). The impact of dialect density on the growth of language and reading in African American children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 49, 232-247.

We recently did an episode on the impact of intergenerational trauma, which was about how the ways we were parented, and even the ways our parents were parented, ends up influencing the relationship we have with our children – and often not in a positive way.

But there’s another side to this story: relationships between the generations can actually have enormously beneficial effects on children’s lives, even when these are affected by issues like radically different parenting styles, and mental illness.

Today we explore the more positive side of intergenerational relationship with Dr. Peter Whitehouse, who (along with his wife, Cathy) co-founded The Intergenerational School in Cleveland, OH, which is now part of a small network of three schools that use this model.

Have you ever thought about how you talk about ageing effects what your children think about older people? (I hadn’t, but I have now!) Do you struggle to navigate the difference between the things your parents want to say to and buy for your child, and your own values? Do you worry about what your child might think of their grandparent’s absent-mindedness or volatility? Join us as Dr. Whitehouse and I navigate a path through these and other issues.

(03:07) The definition of intergenerativity.

(09:04) how people and other cultures interact with the elderly generally, and specifically with grandparents in particular

(13:49) When kids have a good relationship with elders in their own family, they are more open to relationships with adults and elders in society at large.

(16:56) The underlying principle of the intergenerational school and how it differs from a typical school.

(19:35) What an intergenerational playground looks like.

(35:15) The tension we feel in life about the security of the same and the danger of difference.

(39:11) How can families encourage intergenerational relationships?

(51:46) The more we compartmentalize people and categorize them as sick or diseased, the more we're afraid of them.

 

Babcock, R., MaloneBeach, E.E., & Woodworth-Hou, B. (2016). Intergenerational intervention to mitigate children’s bias against the elderly. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 14(4), 274-287.

Bessell, S. (2017). The role of intergenerational relationships in children’s experiences of community. Children & Society 31, 263-275.

Bostrom, A-K., & Schmidt-Hertha, B. (2017). Intergenerational relationships and lifelong learning. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 15(1), 1-3.

Even-Zohar, A., & Garby, A. (2016). Great-grandparents’ role perception and its contribution to their quality of life. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 14(3), 197-219.

Flash, C. (2015). The Intergenerational Learning Center, Providence Mount St. Vincent, Seattle. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 13(4), 338-341.

George, D.R., & Whitehouse, P.J. (2010). Intergenerational volunteering and quality of life for persons with mild-to-moderate dementia: Results from a 5-month intervention study in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 58(4), 796-797.

Geraghty, R., Gray, J., & Ralph, D. (2015). ‘One of the best members of the family’: Continuity and change in young children’s relationships with their grandparents. In L. Connolly (Ed.), The ‘Irish’ Family (pp.124-139). New York, NY: Routledge.

Hake, B.J. (2017). Gardens as learning spaces: Intergenerational learning in urban food gardens. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 15(1), 26-38.

Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J.F., Jones, B.G.B., Alvarez, H., & Charnov, E.L. (2000). The grandmother hypothesis and human evolution. In Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective, edited by L. Cronk, N. Chagnon & W. Irons, pp. 231-252. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Kirkwood, T., Bond, J., May, C., McKeith, I., & Teh, M. (2010). Mental capital and wellbeing through life: Future challenges. In C. Cooper, J. Field, U. Goswami, R. Jenkins, & B. Sahakian (Eds.), Mental capital and wellbeing (pp. 3–53). Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Low, L-F., Russell, F., McDonald, T., & Kauffman, A. (2015). Grandfriends, an intergenerational program for nursing-home residents and preschoolers: A randomized trial. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 13(3), 227-240.

Murayama, Y., Obha, H., Yasunanaga, M., Nonaka, K., Takeuchi, R., Nishi, M., Sakuma, N., Uchida, H., Shinkai, S., & Fujiwara, Y. (2015). The effect of intergenerational programs on the mental health of elderly adults. Aging and Mental Health 19(4), 306-316.

Schwartz, L.K., & Simmons, J.P. (2001). Contact quality and attitudes toward the elderly. Educational Gerontology 27(2), 127-137.

Senior, E., & Green J. (2017). Through the ages: Developing relationships between the young and the old. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships 15(3), 295-305.

Sun, Y., & Jiang, N. (2017). The effect of grandparents’ co-parenting on young children’s personality and adaptation: Chinese three-generation families. Asian Social Science 13(5), 7-15.

Whitehouse, P.J. (n.d.). Intergenerativity: Imaging between to imagine beyond. Taos Institute. Retrieved from https://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/files/Content/5694536/Whitehouse_-_Intergenerativity_presentation.pdf

Whitehouse, P.J. (2010, Spring). Taking brain health to a deeper and broader level. Neurological institute Journal. 17-22.

Whitehouse, P.J., Bendezu, E., Fallcreek, S., & Whitehouse, C. (2000). Intergenerational community schools: A new practice for a new time. Educational Gerontology 26, 761-770.

 

 

“I spent the whole morning painting and doing origami and felting projects with my daughter – and not only did she not say “thank you,” but she refused to help clean up!” (I actually said this myself this morning:-))

 

“We took our son to Disneyland and went on every ride he wanted to go on except one, which was closed, and he spent the rest of the trip whining about how the whole trip was ruined because he didn’t get to go on that one ride.” (I hope I never have to say this one…I’m not sure I could make it through Disneyland in one piece.)

 

You might recall that we did an episode a while back on manners, and what the research says about teaching manners, and how what the research says about teaching manners comes from the assumption that manners MUST be explicitly taught – that your child will NOT learn to say “thank you” unless you tell your child “say thank you” every time someone gives them a gift.

 

We also talked about how parent educator Robin Einzig uses the concept of “modeling graciousness” and that if you treat other people graciously, when your child is ready, she will be gracious as well.  The problem here, of course, is that most people expect your child to display some kind of manners before they are developmentally ready to really understand the concept behind it.

 

But what really underlies manners?  Well, ideas like gratitude.  Because when we train children to say “thank you” before they are ready to do it themselves they might learn to recite the words at the appropriate time, but they aren’t really experiencing gratitude.

 

Dr. Jonathan Tudge of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro tells us much more about this, and how we can scaffold our child’s ability to experience gratitude, if we decide we might want to do that.

 

Dr. Tudge’s book, Developing Gratitude in Children and Adolescents (co-edited with Dr. Lia B. L. Freitas) contains lots more academic research on this topic if you’re interested.

 

00:38 Introduction to the episode and guest Dr. Jon Tudge

02:27 What gratitude actually means, and its three parts

05:01 Why most “gratitude” scales are really measuring appreciation

09:40 Is saying “thank you” the same as being grateful?

12:09 Modeling gratitude instead of forcing a child to say thank you

21:24 The cookie jar test: how theory of mind connects to gratitude

24:21 Concrete gratitude: when kids give back what they themselves love

28:07 How the development of gratitude differs across cultures

33:25 Shifting a child’s focus from the gift to the person who gave it

40:50 A mindset shift for teachers and parents: what can I give, not what can I get

 

Halberstadt, A.G., Langley, H.A., Hussong, A.M., Rothenberg, W.A., Coffman, J.L., Mokrova, I., & Costanzo, P.R. (2016). Parents’ understanding of gratitude in children: A thematic analysis. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 36, 439-451.

Kiang, l. Mendonca S., Liang, Y., Payir, A., O’Brien, L.T., Tudge, J.R.H., & Freitas, L.B.L. (2016). If children won lotteries: Materialism, gratitude, and imaginary windfall spending. Young Consumers 17(4), 408-418.

Mendonca, S.E., Mercon-Vargas, E.A., Payir, A., & Tudge, J.R.H. (2018). The development of gratitude in seven societies: Cross-cultural highlights. Cross-Cultural Research 52(1), 135-150.

Mercon-Vargas, E.A., Poelker, A.E., & Tudge, J.R.H. (2018). The development of the virtue of gratitude: Theoretical foundations and cross-cultural issues. Cross-Cultural Research 52(1), 3-18.

Mokrova, I.L., Mercon-Vargas, E.A., & Tudge, J.R.H. (2018). Wishes, gratitude, and spending preferences in Russian Children. Cross-Cultural Research 52(1), 102-116.

Nelson, J.A., Freitas, L.B.L., O’Brien, M., Calkins, S.D., Leerkes, E.M., & Marcovich, S. (2013). Preschool-aged children’s understanding of gratitude: Relations with emotion and mental state knowledge. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 31, 42056.

Tudge, J.R.H., & Freitas, L.B.L. (Eds.) (2018). Developing gratitude in children and adolescents. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.

Wang, D., Wang, Y.C., & Tudge, J.R.H. (2015). Expressions of gratitude in children and adolescents: Insights from China and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 46(8), 1039-1058.

 

Do you ever snap at your child over tiny things, and wonder where that intense anger comes from? You're not alone - and there's actually a scientific explanation for why this happens.

 

What you're experiencing might be intergenerational trauma - the way traumatic experiences and their effects get passed down from parents to children, often without us even realizing it. But here's the hopeful part: understanding how this works is the first step to breaking the cycle.

 

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Rebecca Babcock-Fenerci, a clinical psychologist from Stonehill College who researches exactly how trauma transmits across generations and what we can do about it. She explains the science behind the reasons our brains react so strongly to certain parenting situations, and why some survivors seem to come through trauma unscathed while others struggle daily. Most importantly, she helps us to examine some of the ways we can recognize the impact of this trauma on ourselves. And with this awareness and the right tools, we can heal these patterns and create the calm, connected relationships with our children that we've always wanted.

 

Questions This Episode Will Answer

Dr. Babcock-Fenerci explains that intergenerational trauma occurs when parents who experienced trauma pass both the direct traumatic experiences and the psychological consequences (like PTSD, mood disorders, and disrupted attachment) to their children through various mechanisms including genetics, epigenetics, and parenting behaviors.

 

Trauma transmits through multiple pathways: genetic predisposition, epigenetic changes (where experiences turn genes on or off), trauma-related thought patterns in parents, and when children serve as unconscious trauma reminders that trigger the parent's unprocessed emotions and memories.

 

Individual responses vary based on genetic predisposition, personality differences, other life stressors, and the severity/duration of the trauma. Even siblings in the same family can have completely different outcomes due to these complex interactions between genetics and environment.

 

The answer lies between two extremes - never talking about it can prevent healing, while over-sharing inappropriately can cause vicarious trauma. Parents should consider the child's developmental stage, let children's questions guide conversations, and think through the purpose and potential impact before sharing.

 

Parents often get triggered by situations that unconsciously remind them of their own childhood experiences - like children repeating behaviors, not listening, or general parenting situations that activate old trauma memories. The key is gaining insight into why these specific situations cause such intense reactions.

 

Warning signs include behavior problems, mood issues, anxiety, conflict in the parent-child relationship, or when a parent notices their own emotional reactions seem disproportionate to the situation. These may indicate intergenerational trauma transmission.

 

Processing involves gaining insight into triggers, understanding where intense emotions come from, seeking therapy when needed, learning emotional regulation techniques like taking breaths during triggered moments, and working on unresolved trauma with professional support.

 

What You'll Learn in This Episode

You'll discover the science behind what we know of how trauma passes between generations, including the role of epigenetics, and how unprocessed trauma memories affect current parenting situations.

 

Through discussion of various stories (including a Vietnamese refugee family, an adoptee from Russia, and a family who escaped domestic violence), you'll see how intergenerational trauma plays out in real families and recognize patterns in your own life.

 

Learn concrete techniques for managing trauma triggers, including the power of taking a breath before reacting, gaining insight into your emotional patterns, and working as a family team to manage difficult moments together.

 

Dr. Babcock-Fenerci shares research-backed approaches to trauma processing, when therapy is helpful, and considerations for confronting people who have hurt you.

 

Understand why trauma memories work differently than regular memories, how the fight-or-flight response affects parenting, and why gaining conscious insight into unconscious patterns can literally change how your brain responds to triggers.

 

FAQ

No. Research shows that 75% of parents who experienced childhood maltreatment do NOT go on to maltreat their own children. Having trauma doesn't doom you to repeat cycles - awareness and healing work can help you break patterns.

 

Any experience that left you with intense emotional reactions, unprocessed memories, or patterns that feel out of proportion to current situations may be worth exploring. Trauma isn't just severe abuse - it includes emotional neglect, witnessing violence, or feeling unsafe or unloved as a child.

 

Memory gaps can actually be a sign of trauma processing through dissociation. Your body and emotional patterns may hold trauma memories even when your conscious mind doesn't. Pay attention to your current triggers and reactions for clues.

 

It's never too late. Dr. Babcock-Fenerci emphasizes that healing is an ongoing process, not a destination. Even small insights and changes in how you respond to triggers can make a meaningful difference for both you and your children.

 

Look for therapists trained in trauma-specific approaches like trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, and EMDR. They should understand both individual trauma work and how it affects family relationships.

 

This is common and challenging. Consider couples therapy, sharing educational resources about trauma, or working on your own healing first. Sometimes seeing positive changes in you can help partners become more supportive over time.

 

Yes. Dr. Fenerci notes that humans are inherently resilient. While trauma can have impacts, many factors contribute to resilience including supportive relationships, processing experiences, and developing coping skills. Awareness and healing work strengthen this natural resilience.

 

Trauma responses tend to be more intense than the situation warrants - like "seeing red" over minor issues, having physical reactions, or responses that feel connected to your own childhood experiences rather than just your child's current behavior.

 

Taming Your Triggers

If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, sign up for the Taming Your Triggers workshop.

 

We’ll help you to:

 

Click the banner to learn more!

 

 

00:37 Introduction to the episode and guest Dr. Fenerci

02:43 What intergenerational trauma is and how it's defined

06:09 Why the impact of the same trauma varies so much between people

08:33 How the brain processes trauma differently from ordinary memory

10:29 A listener's story: what happens when a family retells trauma over and over

16:14 Anger, transference, and reenacting old patterns without realizing it

20:59 A listener's question: understanding triggers and whether to revisit the past

27:08 How a child can unconsciously become a trauma reminder for a parent

30:36 Shame, disorganized memory, and their link to a child's mood and behavior

35:40 Jen's own trigger: being interrupted, and what her daughter revealed

40:47 Taking a breath: modeling emotional regulation for children

44:44 Why trauma can make specific parts of parenting especially hard

47:56 When loving a child isn't the same as meeting a child's needs

52:20 Signs worth paying attention to, in a parent and in a child

 

Auerhahn, N.C., & Laub, D. (1998). Intergenerational memory of the Holocaust. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp.21-41). New York, NY: Plenum.

Babcock, R.L., & DePrince, A.P. (2013). Factors contributing to ongoing intimate partner abuse: Childhood betrayal trauma and dependence on one’s perpetrator. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 28(7), 1385-1402.

Berthelot, N., Ensink, K., Bernazzani, O., Normandin, L., Fonagy, P., & Luyten, P. (2015). Intergenerational transmission of attachment in abused and neglected mothers: The role of trauma-specific reflective functioning. Infant Mental Health Journal 36(2), 200-212.

Cross, D., Vance, L.A., Kim, Y.J., Ruchard, A.L., Fox, N., Jovanovic, T., & Bradley, B. (2017). Trauma exposure, PTSD, and parenting in a community sample of low-income, predominantly African American mothers and children. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Psychological Trauma 10(3), 327-335.

Dias, B.G., & Ressler, K.J. (2014). Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience 17, 89-96.

Fenerci, R.L.B., & DePrince, A.P. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma: Maternal trauma-related cognitions and toddler symptoms. Child Maltreatment 23(2), 126-136.

Fenerci, R.L.B., & DePrince, A.P. (2017). Shame and alienation related to child maltreatment: Links to symptoms across generations. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Epub ahead of print. doi: 10.1037/tra0000332

Fenerci, R.L.B. & DePrince, A.P. (2016). Intergenerational transmission of trauma-related distress: Maternal betrayal trauma, parenting attitudes, and behaviors. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 25(4), 382-399.

Kellerman, N.P.F. (2013). Epigentic transmission of Holocaust trauma: Can nightmares be inherited? Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 50(1), 33-39.

Nagata, D.K. (1998). Intergenerational effects of the Japanese American internment. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp.125-139). New York, NY: Plenum.

Oliver, J.E. (1993). Intergenerational transmission of child abuse: Rates, research, and clinical implications. American Journal of Psychiatry 150, 1315-1324.

Riva, M.A. (2017). Epigenetic signatures of early life adversities in animal models: A role for psychopathology vulnerability. European Psychiatry 415, S29.

Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N.P., Bierer, L.M., Bader, H.N., Klengel, T., Holsboer, F., & Binder, E.B. (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry 80, 372-380.

Pretty regularly I see posts in online parenting groups saying “My child loves to pretend, and they always want me to participate.  I dare not tell anyone else, but I CAN’T STAND PRETEND PLAY.  What should I do?”

 

In this final (unless something else catches my interest!) episode in our extended series on play, Dr. Ansley Gilpin of the University of Alabama helps us to do a deep dive into what children learn from pretend play, and specifically what they learn from fantasy play, which is pretend play regarding things that could not happen in real life (like making popcorn on Mars).

 

We’ll discuss the connection between fantasy play and children’s executive function, the problems with studying fantasy play, and the thing you’ve been waiting for: do you HAVE to do fantasy play with your child if you just can’t stand it (and what to do instead!)

 

If you missed other episodes in this series, you might want to check them out: we started out asking “what is the value of play?”, then we looked at the benefits of outdoor play and talked with Dr. Scott Sampson about his book How to Raise a Wild Child.  We wrapped up with outdoor play by trying to understand whether we should allow our children to take more risks.

 

01:24 Introduction to Dr. Ansley Gilpin, developmental psychologist researching executive function and imagination

02:06 Defining fantasy play as distinct from ordinary pretend play

08:17 A correlational study linking fantasy play to executive function skills

11:33 A five-week intervention study comparing fantasy play, reality-based play, and non-imaginative games

20:30 Choosing culturally appropriate play prompts, including a story about religious families and pretend play

25:19 Anthropological evidence: many cultures don't expect parents to engage in children's make-believe at all

27:06 Should parents feel obligated to join fantasy play, or is redirecting sometimes okay?

30:39 Imaginary friends: how common they are, and when (rarely) they're something to worry about

35:40 Using pretend play as a window into a child's real emotional distress, and how to tell the difference

39:52 Do elaborate costumes and props actually help imaginative play, or is a stick just as good?

40:52 A note on heavy TV viewing potentially crowding out children's own imaginative play

42:33 A study on kids' preferences: given the choice, most children prefer doing the real activity over pretending

 

Bergen, D. (2013). Does pretend play matter? Searching for Evidence: Comment on Lillard et al. (2013). Psychological Bulletin 139(1), 45-48.

Buchsbaum, D., Bridgers, S., Weisberg, D.S., & Gopnik, A. (2012). The power of possibility: Causal learning, counterfactual reasoning, and pretend play. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 367. 2202-2212.

Carlson, S.M., White, R.E., & Davis-Unger, A.C. (2014). Evidence for a relation between executive function and pretense representation in preschool children. Cognitive Development 29, 1-16.

Gilpin, A.T., Brown, MM., & Pierucci, J.M. (2015). Relations between fantasy orientation and emotion regulation in preschool. Early Education and Development 26(7), 920-932.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Weisberg, D.S., & Golinkoff, R.M. (2013). Embracing complexity: Rethinking the relation between play and learning: Comment on Lillard et al. (2013). Psychological Bulletin 139(1), 35-39.

Hoffman, J.D., & Russ, S.W. (2016). Fostering pretend play skills and creativity in elementary school school girls: A group play intervention. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 10(1), 114-125.

Krasnor, L. R., & Pepler, D. J. (1980). The study of children’s play: Some suggested future directions. In K. H. Rubin (Ed.), Children’s play: New directions for child development (pp. 85–95). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lancy, D. F. (2015). The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel, changelings. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Li, J., Hestenes, L.L., & Wang, Y.C. (2016). Links between preschool children’s social skills and observed pretend play in outdoor childcare environments. Early Childhood Education Journal 44, 61-68.

Lillard, A. (2011). Mother-child fantasy play. In A. D. Pelligrini (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the development of play (pp. 284–295). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Lillard, A.S., Lerner, M.D., Hopkins, E.J., Dore, R.A., Smith, E.D., & Palmquist, C.M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin 139(1), 1-34.

Lillard, A.S., Hopkins, E.J., Dore, R.A., Palmquist, C.M., Lerner, M.D., & Smith, E.D. (2013). Concepts, theories, methods and reasons: Why do the children (pretend) play? Reply to Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (2013); Bergen (2013); and Walker and Gopnik (2013). Psychological Bulletin 139(1), 49-52.

Ma, L., & Lillard, A. (2017). The evolutionary significance of pretend play: Two-year-olds’ interpretation of behavioral cues. Learning & Behavior 45, 441-448.

Paley, V. (2009). The importance of fantasy, fairness, and friends in children’s play: An interview with Vivian Gussin Paley. American Journal of Play 2(2), 121-138.

Pierucci, J.M., O’Brien, C.T., McInnis, M.A., Gilpin, A.T., & Barber, A.B. (2014). Fantasy orientation constructs and related executive function development in preschool: Developmental benefits to executive functions by being a fantasy-oriented child. International Journal of Behavioral Development 38(1), 62-69.

Singer, D.G., & Singer, J.L. (2013). Reflections on pretend play, imagination, and child development. Interview in American Journal of Play 6(1), 1-13.

Sutton-Smith, B., & Kelly-Byrne, D. (1984). The idealization of play. In P. K. Smith (Ed.), Play in animals and humans (pp. 305–321). Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Taggart, J., Heise, M.J., & Lillard, A.S. (2018). The real thing: Preschoolers prefer actual activities to pretend ones. Developmental Science 21, e12582.

The Marshmallow Test is one of the most famous experiments in Psychology: Dr. Walter Mischel and his colleagues presented a preschooler with a marshmallow.  The child was told that the researcher had to leave the room for a period of time and the child could either wait until the researcher returned and have two marshmallows, or if the child couldn’t wait, they could call the researcher back by ringing a bell and just have one marshmallow.  The idea was to figure how delayed gratification develops, and, in later studies, understand its importance in our children’s lives and academic success.

 

Dr. Mischel and his colleagues have followed some of the children he originally studied and have made all kinds of observations about their academic, social, and coping competence, and even their health later in life.

 

But a new study by Dr. Tyler Watts casts some doubt on the original results.  In this episode we talk with Dr. Watts about the original work and some of its flaws (for example, did you know that the original sample consisted entirely of White children of professors and grad students, but the results were extrapolated as if they apply to all children?).  We then discuss the impact of his new work, and what parents should take away from all of this.

 

As a side note that you might enjoy, my almost 4YO saw me open my computer to publish this episode and asked me what I was doing.  I said I needed to publish a podcast episode and she asked me what it was about.  I told her it’s about the Marshmallow Test and asked her if she wanted to try it.

 

She is, as I type, sitting at our dining room table with three marshmallows on a plate in front of her, trying to hold out for 15 minutes.  We’re not doing it in strictly; we are both still in the room with her, although we’re both typing and ignoring her and asking her to turn back toward the table when she asks us a question.

 

She keeps asking how many minutes have passed, which I imagine (as I tell her) is quite helpful to her in terms of measuring the remaining effort needed.  She seems most torn between wanting to continue building her Lego airport and the need for the three marshmallows.  She has sung a bit, and smelled the marshmallows a bit, and stacked them into a tower, but she is mostly trying to ignore them and is counting as high as she can.

 

14 minute update [quiet, despairing voice]: “I’ve been waiting for so long…”

 

She did make it to 15 minutes (that’s her devouring the third marshmallow in the picture for this episode), although I wonder if she might not have without the time updates.  We’ll have to try that another day:-)

 

02:00 Introduction to Dr. Tyler Watts, researcher on early childhood development and cognition

11:14 Why the original Marshmallow Test wasn't even designed to be longitudinal

18:23 Criticisms of the test: trust, cognitive strategies, and shyness as confounding factors

22:21 Questioning whether marshmallow-resisting (intrinsic) translates to schoolwork (extrinsic) motivation

29:13 The government-funded NICHD dataset Dr. Watts used instead of collecting new data

35:49 Why statistical controls matter: separating the marshmallow test from the parenting and environment behind it

39:07 Results without controls: weaker effects than the original study, and no link at all to behavioral outcomes

40:58 Splitting the sample by mother's education, and why the "ceiling effect" mattered for measurement

43:37 Adding full statistical controls: the achievement link nearly disappears

45:29 Jen's summary interpretation, and Dr. Watts weighing in on how closely it matches the findings

47:36 Why delayed gratification alone probably isn't worth targeting in isolation as an intervention

 

Bembenutty, H., & Karabenick, S.A. (2004). Inherent association between academic delay of gratification, future time perspective, and self-regulated learning. Educational Psychology Review 16(1), 35-57.

Bennett, J. (2018, May 25). NYU Steinhardt Professor replicates famous Marshmallow Test, makes new observations. New York University. Retrieved from https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2018/may/nyu-professor-replicates-longitudinal-work-on-famous-marshmallow.html

Berman M.G., Yourganov, G., Askren, M.K., Ayduk, O., Casey, B.J., Gotlib, I.H., Kross, E., McIntosh, A.R., Strogher, S., Wilson, N.L., Zayas, V., Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Jonides, J. (2013). Dimensionality of brain networks linked to life-long individual differences in self-control. Nature Communications 4(1373), 1-7.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Calarco, J.M. (2018, June 1). Why rich kids are so good at the Marshmallow Test. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=family-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20180602&silverid-ref=MzYwODc2MjE4MjE4S0

Carlson, S.M., Shoda, Y., Ayduk, O., Aber, L., Schaefer, C., Sethi, A., Wilson, N., Peake, P.K., & Mischel, W. (2017). Cohort effects in children’s delay of gratification. HECO Working Paper Series 2017-077.

Duckworth, A.L., Tsukayama, E., & Kirby, T.A. (2013). Is it really self-control? Examining the predictive power of the delay of gratification task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39(7), 843-855.

Imuta, K., Hayne, H., & Scarf, D. (2014). I want it all and I want it now: Delay of gratification in preschool children. Developmental Psychobiology 56, 1541-1552.

Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R.N. (2012). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition 126, 109-114.

Michaelson, L.E., & Munakata, Y. (2016). Trust matters: Seeing how an adult treats another person influences preschoolers’ willingness to delay gratification. Developmental Science 19(6), 1011-1019.

Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 16(2), 329-337.

Mischel, W., Ebbesen E.B., & Zeiss, A.R. (1972). Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21(2), 204-218.

Mischel, W., & Baker, N. (1975). Cognitive appraisals and transformations in delay behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psycholgy 31(2), 254-261.

Mischel, Q., Shsoda, Y., & Peake, P.K. (1988). The nature of adolescent competences predicted by preschool delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54(4), 687-696.

Mischel, W., Ayduk, O., Berman, M., Casey, B.J., Gotlib, I.H., Jonides, J., Kross, E., Teslovich, T., Wilson, N.L., Zayas, V., & Shoda, Y. (2011). ‘Willpower’ over the life span: Decomposing self-regulation. SCAN 6, 252-256.

Schlam, T.R., Wilson, N.L., Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2013). Preschoolers’ delay of gratification predicts their body mass 30 years later. The Journal of Pediatrics 162(1), 90-93.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P.K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology 26(6), 978-986.

Tangney, J.P., Baumeister, R.F., & Boone, A.L. (2004). High self0control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. Journal of Personality 72(2), 271-324.

Watts, T.W., Duncan, G.J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes. Psychological Science 1-19.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618761661

You all know that on the show we pretty much steer clear of the clickbait articles that try to convince you that something is wrong with your child, in favor of getting a balanced view of the overall body of literature on a topic.

But every once in a while a study comes along and I think “we really MUST learn more about that, even though it muddies the water a bit and leads us more toward confusion than a clear picture.”

This is one of those studies.  We’ll learn about the original Hart & Risley study that identified the “30 Million Word Gap” that so much policy has been based on since then, and what are the holes in that research (e.g. did you know that SIX African American families on welfare in that study are used as proxies for all poor families in the U.S., only 25% of whom are African American?).

Then, Dr. Doug Sperry will tell us about his research, which leads him to believe that overheard language can also make a meaningful contribution to children’s vocabulary development.

I do want to be 100% clear on one point: Dr. Sperry says very clearly that he believes parents speaking with children is important for their development; just that overheard language can contribute as well.

And this is not Dr. Sperry out on his own criticizing research that everyone else agrees with: if you’re interested, there are a host of other issues listed here.

The overarching problem, of course, is that our school system is so inflexible that linguistic skills – even really incredible ones of the type we discussed in our recent episode on storytelling – have no place in the classroom if they don’t mesh with the way that White, middle-class families (and, by extension, teachers and students) communicate.

But that will have to be an episode for another day.

 

Adair, J. K., Colegrove, K. S-S., & McManus, M. E. (2017).  How the word gap argument negatively impacts young children of Latinx Immigrants’ conceptualizations of learning. Harvard Educational Review, 87(3), 309-334.

Akhtar, N., & Gernsbacher, M.A. (2007). Joint attention and vocabulary development: A critical look. Language and Linguistic Compass 1(3), 195-207.

Callanan, M., & Waxman, S. (2013). Commentary on special section: Deficit or difference? Interpreting diverse developmental paths. Developmental Psychology 49(1), 80-83.

Dennett, D. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meaning of life. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Dudley-Marling, C., & Lucas, K. (2009). Pathologizing the language and culture of poor children. Language Arts 86(5), 362-370.

Gee, J.P. (1985). The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education 167(1), 9-57.

Genishi, C., & Dyson, A. H. (2009).  Children, language, and literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times.  New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hoff, E. (2013). Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental Psychology 49(1), 4-14.

Johnson, E.J. (2015). Debunking the “language gap.” Journal for Multicultural Education 9(1), 42-50.

Miller, P.J., & Sperry, D.E. (2012). Déjà vu: The continuing misrecognition of low-income children’s verbal abilities. In S.T. Fiske & H.R. Markus (Eds.), Facing social class: How societal rank influences interaction (pp.109-130). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Sperry, D.E., Sperry, L.L., & Miller, P.J. (2018). Reexamining the verbal environments of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Child Development (Early online publication).  Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peggy_Miller3/publication/324839950_Reexamining_the_Verbal_Environments_of_Children_From_Different_Socioeconomic_Backgrounds/links/5aec67fda6fdcc8508b77912/Reexamining-the-Verbal-Environments-of-Children-From-Different-Socioeconomic-Backgrounds.pdf

Walker, D., Greenwood, C., Hart, B., & Carta, J. (1994). Prediction of school outcomes based on early language production and socioeconomic factors. Child Development 65(2), 606-621.

 

Read Full Transcript

 

Jen:[00:38]

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I think today we’re going to blow a few holes in some classic research. You might have heard of what’s known as the 30 Million Word Gap, which at a high level is the idea that middle class parents talk so much more to their young children on a daily basis than poor parents do, and that this accumulates a gap of 30 million words by the time the children are four years old. So I took a brief look at this study a while back and I noticed that the researchers, Professor Betty Hart of the University of Kansas and Professor Todd Risley at the University of Alaska Anchorage, conflated a couple of important variables in the study, those of wealth and education, which is why I haven’t done an episode on it and whenever anyone asks me about it, I mentioned that the study’s results might be a little bit shaky, but I owe a debt of gratitude to listener Kim from Boston who has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and who works to support African American boys and developing literacy for sending me a research paper that describes a replication of the incredibly time consuming study that professors, Hart and Risley did back in the seventies and which came to rather different conclusions. I’m here today with Dr Douglas Sperry, who is Associate Professor of Psychology at St Mary of the woods college in Indiana who coauthored this paper with his wife and colleague, Dr Linda Sperry of Indiana State University and also Dr Peggy Miller of the University of Illinois. It isn’t often that we take the time to dig so deeply into a single paper on this show, but the original study has become such a part of how we think about what it means to be a good parent, so I’m delighted that Dr Barry is here with us today to really dig into these results. Welcome Dr Berry.

Dr. Sperry: [02:12]

Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate very much the opportunity to talk with you and your listeners.

Jen:  [02:18]

Thank you. So for those listeners who have sort of heard of the 30 Million Word Gap and they kind of know it’s important to talk with their children, but they might not really know what the study is, could you please describe the parameters of the original Hart and Risley Study?

Dr. Sperry:  [02:31]

Yes. The original study was a longitudinal investigation of 42 families, and they were divided by social class. Six of the families were in a welfare group. Twenty three of the families were in a group that Hart and Risley ended up calling the working class group, although there is mention of 10 of those families being middle class and 13 being working true working class, but they ended up combining them and that another top 13 families and children who were in the so called professional group, they undertook this study after really a decade or more of work and the Kansas City area around the University of Kansas. Betty Hart in particular had been working in the Turner House Preschool, which is part of the Turner housing project in Kansas City and she also had some of her university students working and the laboratory preschool at the University of Kansas itself. The Turner Housing Project and it’s preschool, was well. The preschool was entirely African American…composed of African American children.

Dr. Sperry: [03:42]

Whereas the laboratory preschool at the University of Kansas had all children of professors, as is quite common. Anyway with her work at the Turner House Preschool. She noticed that the vocabulary of African American children in that preschool was lagging considerably behind that of the professor’s children at the laboratory preschool. And so in the late sixties and early seventies, she began a series of other interventions expressly aimed at teaching the African American children at the Turner House, more vocabulary, and she noticed that that was quite successful and I should say I neglected to say the first intervention was just to get them to talk more and be more comfortable talking and she got them to talk more, but she still noticed that the vocabulary itself was lacking in the same diversity that the professors’ children had. So they had several other interventions, one of which was, for example, taking the children on various field trips to museums, etc. And still nothing seemed to increase the actual diversity or complexity of the vocabulary, even though the children were talking more. And to quote their 1995 monograph, she writes, the professors’ children simply seemed to know more about everything. so that provided then the impetus for her to begin and for, for her and Todd Risley to begin their very elaborate longitudinal study.

Jen: [05:07]

Okay. So what they’re basically saying is that they’re trying to reach children in preschool with these interventions and that they’re seeing that maybe they have an effect in the short term, but in the longer term they get washed out. Right?

Dr. Sperry: [05:17]

Right. And their conclusion was that they had to start in the homes and so they wanted to see exactly what was going on then in these, these different homes. So they began this very lengthy, protracted data collection. It’s still kind of a monument in terms of the amount of data they collected. And I have often stressed when talking about this report that although we’re, I’m sure going to get a chance to dig into some of the problems with the study. I don’t want to just be entirely critical of the study either because it was, it was a very important work and it has obviously fueled a lot of new research and information. But like any study it happens in a context. And the context of this study was the late seventies and the methods that we used in our study weren’t really current then in language acquisition studies. And so those were some of the issues that we’ve taken issue with.

Jen:[06:12]

So what are some of the contexts, what are some of the things that you saw as as not being really just done then that you that are more current practice now that you were able to incorporate?

Dr. Sperry: [06:23]

Let me actually correct a little bit. Something I said. We are psychologists. All three of us consider ourselves to be psychologist, but we don’t use relatively typical psychological methods. Our methods from anthropological studies and from our paradigm that we work within is called language socialization and using those methods we adopt them more ethnographic approach to data collection. And this, this represents, I think the first major point of difference between our data collection process and that of Hart and Risley and every case for our five communities that we describe in our recent study, each set of recordings of the actual children and their families. We’re only be gone after extensive field work of probably a year or more working in the communities. So when my wife and I were working in Alabama, for example, for over a year, one or the other of us observed in preschools we taught and the community education center that was entirely African American.

Dr. Sperry:  [07:22]

We tutored children in various school subjects and also in giving them piano lessons and we tried to locate ourselves within the community. That obviously was particularly critical, we felt for the reason that we are European American and we were trying to study African American children in that particular case, but in all cases for our research, we do not try to be a fly on the wall and that’s pretty much what Hart and Risley encourage their families to do. And I think that’s more consistent even with current purely psychological inquiries into language acquisition. Researchers are trying to not be part of the scene. Owing a debt to anthropology, we realize that there’s never a point in time where we’re not going to be part of the scene as long as we’re there, we’re going to be noticed as observers and people are going to be taking us into account and so we make every opportunity then to try to become welcome guests in the environs and one particular difference I think that that may have impacted is that, for example, in the Hart and Risley is case their research, their data collection assistants were asked to not speak unless spoken to and that I think by contrast when we’re in a data collection process, obviously we speak when spoken to, but we also might speak at other times that a regular friendly visitor to your house might speak.

Dr. Sperry: [08:54]

We don’t in any way attempt to direct the activity of the observations. We try to let the family flow occur as it’s happening, but we don’t try to act as if we’re not there. I think that – well, we’ll never know obviously for sure, but our guests, our intuition is that that might have mostly affected. In particular Hart and Risley’s welfare group. These were six families who were living in the Turner Housing Projects. It was the seventies. The housing projects were not all that wonderful. We can only imagine that a research assistant coming in with a video camera and sitting there for an hour recording their child was very unfamiliar and possibly very uncomfortable for those families and…

Jen: [09:40]

Despite Hart and Risley’s claim that they essentially blended into the furniture, I think was the one of the phrases they used in one of their papers.

Dr. Sperry: [09:47]

Exactly, exactly and I don’t think it’s possible to blend into the furniture and we don’t know…Hart and Risley did have both European American and African American data collection assistants and they did try to pair African American assistants with African American families, but that’s not really the point for us, I mean, obviously, as I said, we are European American. We did a large study in an African American community. It’s more just a matter of are you familiar enough with the family and are they familiar enough with you that they can trust you to be doing your best? And I also then contrast how we can imagine the welfare mothers may have felt with how the professional families feel. I think many of your listeners are probably professionals and I think they probably share with me the idea that if I was asked and agreed to have somebody come in and record my children, I would so-called put on the dog when they came. I would, you know, be very talkative and I would be trying to put my child in the best possible light because I would know the data that were being collected

Jen:  [10:56]

For sure. So how much of this data was collected and what kind of data do they analyze?

Dr. Sperry: [11:03]

In both cases, both their study and our study, we collected videotaping recordings, although probably for us it was easier because of the size of the machines involved in the seventies. They collected for the 42 children, 25 samples on average per child. So they began their data collection and when the children were 12 months of age and they concluded when they were 36 months and they had a total of 1,318 samples. Our data collection was not that extensive. We analyzed 150, seven and a half hours, I should say. They had 1318 hour-long samples. We have various ages, various amounts of sampling, for example, all of our communities were sampled longitudinally, but we analyzed 157 and a half hours total. Our communities…well, this is what’s called the corporate study. What we did, we did not set out to collect these data expressly to do a study that we just published.

Dr. Sperry: [12:03]

In fact most of the data were collected for our interest in the narrative development of young children. So the South Baltimore children were about 18 or 19 months when their data collection began. Both our Black Belt, Alabama group and the Jefferson Indiana group, were 24 months… The children are 24 months when the data collection began. And Then the two Chicago groups,...

“Storytelling? I’m already reading books to my child – isn’t that enough?”

 

Your child DOES get a lot out of reading books (which is why we’ve done a several episodes on that already, including What children learn from reading books, How to read with your child, and Did you already miss the boat on teaching your toddler how to read?.

 

But it turns out that storytelling benefits our relationship with our child in ways that reading books really can’t, because you’re looking at the book rather than at your child. If you ask your child what kind of story they’d like you to tell, you also get incredible insight into both their interests and concerns – I can attest to this, as I’ve been singing story-songs about poop and various kinds of baby animals who can’t find their mamas on and off for several weeks now (we had an incident a few months back where she couldn’t find me in a store).

 

In this episode we also discuss the ways that people from different cultures tell stories, and what implications this has for them as they interact with our education system.

 

035: Is your parenting All Joy and No Fun?

 

06:52 Introduction to today's topic: the origins and history of storytelling

09:27 How storytelling became something mostly reserved for children in Western culture

12:06 Weighing whether and how to share original, unsanitized versions of fairy tales with kids

15:16 Introducing James Paul Gee's concept of "discourse" from Jen's Master's coursework

18:34 How L's story was misunderstood and penalized by her white teacher, and Gee's defense of its sophistication

20:36 Connecting this to Show and Tell as a vehicle for transmitting "correct" cultural literacy norms

23:29 How different cultures use storytelling to transmit different values, and a caution about cultural appropriation

25:22 Why we tell stories: Kendall Haven's review of 350 papers on the science of storytelling

27:09 How stories create meaning that helps facts stick, illustrated by the photocopier repair technicians

29:54 Studies showing children remember told stories better than read, watched, or self-read ones

34:17 Why animal characters in stories can help more children access a story's meaning

35:40 When reading a story still beats telling one, and reframing oral tradition as its own valid mode of learning

 

Bengtsson, N. (2009). Sex and violence in fairy tales for children. Bookbird: A journal of international children’s literature 47(3), 15-21.

Byers,L.A.(1997).Telling the stories of our lives: Relational maintenance as illustrated through family communication. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio University.

Bylund, C.L. (2003). Ethnic diversity and family stories. Journal of Family Communication 3(4), 215-236.

Clark, A.N. (1969). Journey to the People. New York, NY: Viking.

Dyson, A.H., & Genishi, C. (Eds) (1994). The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Egan, K. (1987). Literacy and the oral foundations of education. Harvard Educational review 57, 445-472.

Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Fiese, B.H., Hooker, K.A., Kotary, L., Schwagler, J., & Rimmer, M. (1995). Family stories in the early stages of parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family 57(3), 763-770.

Gee, J.P. (1985). The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education 167(1), 9-35. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42742075

Gordon, T.-J. (1991). Teachers telling stories: Seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old children’s written responses to oral narratives. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

Greene, E., & Del Negro, J.M. (2010). Storytelling: Art and technique (4th Ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Haven, K. (2007). Story proof: the science behind the startling power of story. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Isaacs, D. (2013). Sex and violence in fairy tales. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 49(12), 987-988.

Jasper, M. (2017, February 19). Only 22% of children’s book characters were people of color in 2016.

The Mary Sue. Retrieved from https://www.themarysue.com/poc-childrens-book-characters-2016/

Killick, S., & Frude, N. (2009). The teller, the tale, and the told. Psychologist 22(1), 850-853.

Koenig, J. (2002). Family ties: Identity, process, and relational qualities in joint family

storytelling. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle.

Larsen, N.E., Lee, K., & Ganea, P.A. (2017). Do storybooks with anthropomorphized characters promote prosocial behaviors in young children? Developmental Science (Online article). Full article available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.12590?shared_access_token=pe47nFMA_K4-5DuHH3I2d4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC6748z_qEzyWjpKevlijCSNZqgMtKQWoecQi1JomdGjs2zXZ4BBmtV3ULQacZfVUsyCUHU74tThtq9R3osjgNiWG-ek7hYaAJINhD0wfJowkFQ%3D%3D

McManus, S. (1994). Hibernian Nights. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble.

Noddings, N. (2002). Educating moral people: A caring alternative to character education. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press.

Ramirez-Esparza, N., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). Do good stories produce good health?

Exploring words, language, and culture. Narrative Inquiry, 16, 211-219. Full article available at: http://poetryforpersonalpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/good-stories-produce-good-health.pdf

Stone,E.(1988). Black sheep and kissing cousins: How our stories shape us. New York: Times Books.

Sturm, B.W. (2000). The storytelling trance experience. The Journal of American Folklore 113(449), 287-304.

The Conversation Africa (n.d.). Cultural appropriation: When “borrowing” becomes exploitation. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-africa/cultural-appropriation-wh_b_10585184.html

Trees, A.R., & Kellas, J.K. (2009). Telling tales: Enacting family relationships in joint storytelling about difficult family experiences. Papers in Communication Studies (1-2009), University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Full article available at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstudiespapers/121/

Wilson, K. (2016, September 14). How diverse is children’s literature? This infographic tells the disturbing truth. Bustle. Retrieved from https://www.bustle.com/articles/183948-how-diverse-is-childrens-literature-this-infographic-tells-the-disturbing-truth

“Social and Emotional Learning” is all the rage in school these days, along with claims that it can help children to manage their emotions, make responsible decisions, as well as improve academic outcomes.

 

But what if those programs don’t go nearly far enough?

 

What if we could support our child in developing a sense of compassion that acts as a moral compass to not only display compassion toward others, but also to pursue those things in life that have been demonstrated – through research – to make us happy?  And what if we could do that by supporting them in reading cues they already feel in their own bodies, and that we ordinarily train out of them at a young age?

 

Dr. Brendan Ozawa-de Silva, Associate Director for the Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, tells us about his work to bring secular ethics, which he calls the cultivation of basic human values, into education and society.

 

Learn more about Breandan’s work here:

www.compassion.emory.edu

https://www.facebook.com/emoryseelearning/

 

We also mentioned the Yale University course The Psychology of Wellbeing, which is available on Coursera here.

 

01:42 Introduction to Dr. Brendan Ozawa-de Silva of Emory's Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics

01:51 Defining "secular ethics" and how it connects to social and emotional learning

08:22 Why adults not having all the answers can still be a productive, courageous space to open up

10:21 A four-year-old's spontaneous conversation about compassion, and why this starts before school age

14:53 Free resources at compassion.emory.edu, and starting with "what is kindness?"

17:21 How reciprocity develops over childhood, from tit-for-tat to a broader, farsighted sense of responsibility

21:37 The state of SEL research: why inconsistent results don't necessarily mean the approach doesn't work

27:43 Weighing structured programs against unstructured outdoor play as another path to these same skills

32:54 Connecting sensation-awareness to past episodes on risky play and modeling emotional regulation

35:09 The marshmallow study and impulse control as an example of why regulating emotion matters

36:11 The "spark and forest fire" analogy for catching emotions early, before they escalate

40:47 Teaching kids metacognition: practicing the skill of just watching their own mind

42:42 Mediating disputes between siblings: body awareness, mindful dialogue, and perspective-taking

48:10 Zooming out: happiness research, the "hedonic treadmill," and where material success falls short

52:09 A comparison to hyper-competitive education systems elsewhere, like India and Japan

 

Desbordes, G., Negi, L.T., Pace, T.W.W., Wallace, B.A., Raison, C.L., & Schwartz, E.L. (2012). Effects of mindful-attention and compassion medication training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6(1), 1-15.

Frey, K.S., Nolen, S.B., Edstrom, L.V., & Hirschstein, M.K. (2005). Effects of a school-based social-emotional competence program: Linking children’s goals, attributions, and behavior. Applied Developmental Psychology 26, 171-200.

Lantieri, L., & Nambiar, M. (2012). Cultivating the social, emotional, and inner lives of children and teachers. Reclaiming Children and Youth 21(2), 27-33.

Maloney, J.E., Lawlor, M.S., Schonert-Reichl, K.A., & Whitehead, J. (2016). A mindfulness-based social and emotional learning curriculum for school-aged children: The MindUP program. In K.A. Schoenert-Reichl & R.W. Roeser (Eds.), Handbook of mindfulness in education (pp.313-334). New York, NY: Springer.

Ozawa-de Silva, B., & Dodson-Lavelle, B. (2011). An education of heart and mind: Practical and theoretical issues in teaching cognitive-based compassion training to children. Practical Matters 4, 1-28.

Pace, T.W.W., Negi, L.T., Adame, D.D., Cole, S.P., Sivilli, T.I., Brown, T.D., Issa, M.J., & Raison, C.L. (2009). Effect of compassion meditation on neuroendocrine, innate immune and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology 34, 87-98.

Rovelli, C. (2017). Reality is not what it seems: The journey to quantum gravity. New York, NY: Riverhead.

"How much can there really be to learn about storytelling?" I thought when I started on this mini-series.

 

It turns out that there's actually quite a lot to learn, and that family storytelling can be a particularly useful tool for parents. We're all trying to figure out how to transmit our values to our children, and storytelling can be quite an effective way of doing this. Further, storytelling can be a really valuable way to support children in overcoming traumatic experiences - and even to repair relationships after difficult moments like yelling. In this episode we dig into the research on the benefits of family storytelling and look at how to do it effectively.

 

Questions this episode will answer

We often feel safest when we read books to our kids.  It seems like a ‘script’ that saves us from having to fully understand the situation and come up with our own words to describe it. Family storytelling involves sharing narratives about your own family experiences, values, and history. It creates a powerful connection between generations as you transmit important values. It can help children make sense of their place in your family relationships. The episode explores fascinating research about how these personal narratives shape children's identity in ways that storybooks can't match!

 

When difficult emotions arise in our family, it can be tempting to pretend the situation didn’t happen. We hope our kids will just forget about difficult experiences. Instead, children may worry more when they 'can't talk about what happened. Family storytelling is a valuable tool for helping children overcome traumatic experiences. It helps them to make sense of what happened, and repair their family relationships. This can help children build resilience.

 

There are fascinating cultural differences in how families engage in storytelling! American families often position children as primary narrators (like asking about their day at dinner). Israeli families tend to create more equal narrative participation between adults and children. The episode explores how these cultural storytelling styles impact child development differently. We offer insights into adapting techniques that might work best for your family.

Parents tend to share different types of stories as children mature. Parents of younger children tend to tell stories with stronger themes of affiliation and connection. Stories shared with older children often shift toward themes of achievement and striving for success. The podcast unpacks the developmental reasons for this progression. We offer ideas on ways to balance different types of stories.

The atmosphere during family storytelling matters a lot. Researchers have studied the factors that create a positive storytelling environment. These include:

The episode reveals surprising connections between these communication patterns and children's emotional development. We offer practical guidance for creating storytelling moments that strengthen family bonds.

Stories can combine over time and generations. Then they become family legacies that shape how family members view themselves and their place in the world. The podcast explores the profound impact these narratives have on children's identity formation and family relationships. We share strategies for creating meaningful family legacies even if you haven't established these yet.

This might be one of the most valuable parts of the episode for many listeners! The episode provides practical, research-backed strategies to create meaningful family narratives. Even if you didn't grow up with family storytelling traditions. You'll learn specific prompts, timing suggestions, and approaches that feel natural rather than forced.

What you'll learn in this episode

 

If you see that your relationship with your child isn’t where you want it to be because you:

 

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00:37 Introduction of today’s topic

01:44 Walter Fisher is a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California who theorized that narration can be divided into two types – “recounting” or “accounting for.”

02:41 Elizabeth Stone, is an author of the book that’s famous for storytelling called Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins, says the functions of family stories are firstly to persuade family members they are special, secondly to teach about the ways of the world and the family’s methods of coping with troubles and successes, and thirdly helping a person to know his or her own identity

03:35 Six qualities used to define family strength are: a commitment to the family and well-being of each family member, positive communication and an ability to resolve conflict constructively, regular expressions of affection among family members, a tendency to enjoy quality time together, a sense of spiritual wellbeing and an ability to effectively manage stress and unexpected crises

05:11 Mothers tell stories with stronger themes of affiliation than fathers, and affiliation themes are also more common with younger children than with preschoolers

05:47 American family stories often celebratory in nature, without an evident theme of hardship and trial that were present in both recently immigrated and fully assimilated Mexican American family according to Dr. Carma Bylund of the University of Iowa

11:58 Black children in Trackton had an inferior linguistic skillset to those of White children, but rather that their skillset is "different" and does not align well with the skillset that is valued in schools

15:22 Family stories can do is to help children to resolve strong feelings about something traumatic that happened in the family.

17:00 Storytelling can shift stressors from being things that just one family member experiences to a relational-level activity

18:24 Vygotsky believed that there is no such thing as a piece of knowledge that sits off by itself and we can grab hold and learn, and that instead learning is a thing that is constructed between two people

19:49 According to Professor Judy Koenig Kellas of the University of Nebraska that when stories are combined over time and generations, they become family legacies

25:45 Wrapping up the discussion

 

Bylund, C.L. (2003). Ethnic diversity and family stories. Journal of Family Communication 3(4), 215-236.

DeFrain, J., & Stinnett, N. (2003). Family strengths. In J.J. Ponzetti (Ed.), International encyclopedia of marriage and family (2nd Ed., pp.637-642). New York, NY: Macmillan Reference Group.

Fiese, B.H., Hooker, K.A., Kotary, L., Schwagler, J., & Rimmer, M. (1995). Family stories in the early stages of parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family 57(3), 763-770.

Heath, S.B. (1990). The children of Trackton’s children: Spoken and written language in social change. In J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp.496-519). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.  Full chapter available at: http://www.shirleybriceheath.net/pdfs/SBH_ChildrenTracktonsChildren.pdf

Kellas, J.K., & Horstman, H.K. (2015). Communicated narrative sense-making: Understanding family narratives, storytelling, and the construction of meaning through a communicative lens. In L.H. Turner & R. West, The SAGE handbook of family communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Kellas, J.K., & Trees, A.R. (2006). Finding meaning in difficult family experiences: Sense-making and interaction processes during joint family storytelling. Journal of Family Communication 6(1), 49-76.

Schrodt, P. (2009). Family strength and satisfaction as functions of family communication environments. Communication Quarterly 57(2), 171-186.

Thompson, B., Kellas, J.K., Soliz, J., Thompson, J., & Epp, A. (2009). Family legacies: Constructing individual and family identity through intergenerational storytelling. Papers in Communication Studies (122), University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Retrieved from p://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstudiespapers/122

Thompson, P.A., & Schrodt, P. (2015). Perceptions of joint family storytelling as mediators of family communication patterns and family strengths. Communication Quarterly 63(4), 405-426.