Five Steps to Develop Well-adjusted Children from Harvard Study

1. Hang out with your children.

I was blessed to be a stay at home mom.  But sometimes I found that with PTA presidency, church and community volunteering, shopping, cooking and cleaning, and my own projects, the kids didn’t get a lot of my time.  One year I was treasurer for the high school choir where my daughters sang.  It involved time-consuming fund raising.  One daughter asked why I was never home and intimated that I didn’t care much about them since I was always gone.  It didn’t matter to her that what I was doing was for her benefit, it only mattered that I wasn’t there for her.

Spending time with your children means putting everything down.  It doesn’t count if you take your younger child to the park and then sit on a bench with your tablet.  They want interaction: playing tag, pushing on the swings, admiring their daring on the bars. 

It means showing affection, respecting their individual personalities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, talking about things that matter, and affirming their efforts and achievements.

My sister-in-law had a great relationship with her children.  When her teens came home from a date, they would look forward to sharing with her the details, and she would be so excited for them.  My children, on the other hand, when asked about how it went would say, “Fine.”  Period.  It could be that rather than affirming their efforts and being excited for them, I would be judgmental and preachy.  Hmm.

Spending time with them means reading a book with them when they’re younger, or reading a book they like when they are older so you can discuss it with them.  It means hiking, kicking a ball, or just playing an old-fashioned board game.  It means that you interact with your kid person-to-person. Think back to your own childhood.  What are your precious memories?  Chances are they aren’t what your parents bought you, but time you spent together, family vacations, one-on-one times with Mom or Dad.

How can a busy Mom squeeze this into her schedule when there is so much to do?  One way is to include them in what you are doing.  Have them help fix dinner, or plant in the garden.  When there are chores to do, do them together instead of sending them to do the chores alone.  Take them with you when you go on errands and talk together in the car.  Have them assist in any project you are doing.  It is always more difficult and takes longer to have your children “help”, but what are your priorities?  You are developing a child, both training them in skills, and letting them know they are valued.

Spending time with your children is really the foundation of everything else.  Ask them open-ended questions about themselves, about the world and how they see it, and actively listen to their responses.  Accept their views, even if they are different than your own.  Not only will you learn all sorts of things that make your child unique, you’ll also be demonstrating to them how to show care and concern for another person.

2.     Say it out loud.

If it’s important, say it out loud.  You may feel that they should know that you love them because of all the things you do for them, but they take that for granted.  They need to hear the words, “I love you.”  “Thank you.”  “I appreciate it when you…”  “That was a good thing you did.” 

They need to hear what are the values you think are important.  “What can we do to help that person?”  “That was kind of you.” 

Your child needs to hear that he or she is top priority in your life.  It’s not enough to show them by giving them things, keeping them safe, or feeding them.  Children require acknowledgment through words.  Words are important.  One father of a rather rebellious son would say, "I love you more than you will ever know.  So I'm going to be checking up on your tonight to make sure you are where you say you are going."

Invite them to sit and share their stories about school, homework, friends, and so on.  Allow your child to feel comfortable to come and speak with you.

3.     Show your child how to solve problems.  Don’t stress about the outcome.

My husband taught physics on the University level.  He always said the most important thing was to first understand what the problem is, and then the student could figure out how to solve it.

Foster creativity.  Practice brainstorming, but if they suggest something ridiculous, don’t say, “Well, that would never work.”  Laugh with them, maybe follow it through to the ridiculous outcome.  By accepting all possible ideas, they can learn to think outside the box.

Feel free to offer a variety of possible answers to get the ball rolling.  It encourages a child to consider multiple options and to project possible outcomes.

Be patient while they figure it out.  If their jacket sleeves are inside out and they can’t get their arms in, and they are having a melt-down, instead of just fixing it, give them the time to solve the problem on their own.  If they can’t see a solution, ask questions: “What are you trying to do?  How can you do that?  What would happen if you stuck your arm in the sleeve, grabbed the end, and pulled it out?  Would that work?  Is there someone you can ask to help you?”

When you have a problem, think out loud and let your children listen to you solve a problem.  You can even ask for their help.  It’s remarkable to hear the possibilities they can come up with.

“The ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings,” say the researchers.  Helping kids name and process those emotions, then guiding them toward safe conflict resolution, will go a long way toward keeping them focused on being a caring individual. 

It’s difficult to step back as a parent and watch your child make a mistake, but it’s important to allow them to fail.  As tough as it is, failure provides an amazing learning opportunity.  It tells them it’s okay to make mistakes.  None of us magically solve every problem the right way. It’s also important to set clear and reasonable boundaries that they’ll understand are out of love and concern for their safety.

Nor is there only one solution to a problem.  In my husband’s physics lab, the students were doing experiments with pendulums.  A bar clamped to the edge of the lab table with a cross bar holding the pendulum ball and wire.  

All the students were swinging the pendulums from side to side to take their measurements of arc, time, length, etc.  But one set of lab partners were having problems.  They were swinging their pendulum from front to back and it kept hitting the table.  They asked what they should do.  All around them other students were swinging their pendulums back and forth.  My husband told them he thought they could figure it out.  When he came back some time later, they had lowered the cross bar to table height so the pendulum, still swinging front to back, swung under the table.  It wasn’t the obvious solution, but it worked.

To help them risk failure as they try to learn to solve problems, praise your child for their efforts, rather than the outcome.  “The achievement pressure can have a bunch of negative results,” says Russ Weissbourd.

 “I can see how hard you are working to figure this out!”  “You really put a lot of effort into this.”  “I bet you are glad you didn’t give up.  Your determination made the difference.”  “I knew you could figure it out!”

4.     Express gratitude to your child often.

I remember being so angry with my mother when she wouldn’t thank me for doing something she had asked me to do, especially if she instead pointed out how I could have done it better.  I didn’t say anything (I was a compliant child), but I’d give her “the look” and think hard thoughts about her.  Never mind that I never thanked her for what she did for me.  That was different.  I resented her apparent lack of gratitude.  So I tried to make gratitude a routine response for chores done or requests accomplished with my own children.  I found that thank you goes a long way.  Be grateful also for the small acts they do that have nothing to do with chores or school.

I love it when you hand a two-year-old something and they say “tank oo”.  You know they are just parroting their polite parents, and probably don’t really feel gratitude, but the habit will teach them that expressing appreciation is important.

It’s also important to show our children what they have to be grateful for.  I remember when my two youngest children had to share a room with each other and hated it.  I pointed out a cousin in New York that could only afford a two bedroom apartment but had five children, or the newly immigrated Tongan family we knew that had two families in one house.  I could have taken them to a homeless shelter, done a charity trip to Mexico, anything to allow them to witness how fortunate they were to have what they had at home.  This would have taught them not only gratitude, but empathy and compassion.

5.     Teach your child to see the larger picture.

Ask “How would it affect the team if you quit?”  “What will happen later if you don’t eat now?”  “How will that child feel if you are mean to her?” 

Helping them see a situation from different viewpoints and from a larger perspective clarifies their thinking and opens their hearts.  Researchers say that “almost all children empathize with and care about a small circle of family and friends.”  We start there, reinforce, and then expand that circle.  Learning chess teaches them to think ahead to the possible outcomes in the future of their actions now.

Teach your child to be a good listener, to put themselves in another’s shoes, and not judge anyone based on their religion, race, or nationality.  Exposing your child to different cultures helps develop a loving, kind and happy person.  Travel is a wonderful way for your child to experience different cultures and viewpoints, but if that isn’t feasible, books or other media are another excellent way.  Some families have a monthly dinner featuring the food from a different country, with the evening devoted to learning about what’s neat about that country.  If your child has an interest in sports, or fashion design, or armor, you can research together how that differs in different countries or cultures.  Needless to say, it is important that we model empathy and compassion and care to others in word and deed.