I see lots and lots of children going back to school after the lockdown, but there’s little joy on their faces; instead looks of stress and tension cloud their otherwise smiling young visages. “What’s happening?” I ask a youngster walking along with his mother.
“He’s got his exams today,” says his mother. “Aha! So what about a smile son?” I ask “No time to waste on smiles,” says the mother, “he hasn’t been studying at all, and now these exams are going to show what an idiot he is!” Harsh criticism what?
I do agree the young mother must have spent many an hour yelling at her son to get into his books and her son must have done just the opposite, but I wonder whether she used the right technique?
Alan Loy McGinnis cites an interesting study in his book the friendship factor (Augsburg, 1979). A second-grade teacher complained that her children were spending too much time standing up and roaming around the room rather than working.
So two psychologists spent several days at the back of the room with stopwatches observing the behaviour of the children and the teacher. Every ten seconds they noted how many children were out of their seats. They counted 360 unseated children throughout each 20-minute period. They also noted that the teacher said “Sit down!” seven times during the same period.
The psychologists tried an experiment. The asked the teacher to say “Sit down!” more often. Then they sat back to see what would happen. Now she commanded her students to sit down 27.5 times in an average 20-minute period, and now 540 were noted to be out of their seats during the same average period! Her increased yelling actually made the problem worse. (When she later backed off to her normal number of reprimands, the roaming also declined to the exact same number recorded previously in just two days.)
Then the experimenters tried another tack. They asked the teacher to refrain from yelling “Sit down!” altogether, and to instead quietly compliment those children who were seated and working. The result: Children’s roaming decreased by 33%! They exhibited their best behaviour when they were complimented more and reprimanded less!
Eleanor Porter said, “Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out.” If it works for children I am sure it works just the same for adults. Try it out on your husband, your wife, and in your workplace. There is immense power in encouragement — power to make a real difference..!
