Parents -- EDPR 7/8112 Adolescence Sec. 001 0500-0800 R

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Date Posted: 18:53:36 04/01/07 Sun
Author: Tish Colvin
Subject: Parents

This week's reading discussed "reciprocal socialization" as it relates to adolescents and their parents. I can see that phenomenon already with my 7 year old. When he was a toddler his friends were mainly children of MY friends. Now that he's older it seems to be the reverse: I need to become friends with the parents of HIS friends. We're both influencing each other.

On another note, my Midlife course has again overlapped a bit with this course. I read an article by Hyde and King (2001) entitled "Women, Motivation, and Achievement". The authors touched on gender issues in the classroom. Not surprisingly, due to gender stereotypes, parents overestimate their sons' abilities in subjects traditionally viewed as "male-dominated" such as physics, while underestimating their daughters' talent in the same subjects. But unbelievably these parental perceptions were better predictors of the children's self-confidence than the children's actual grades. Wow! The power of perception is amazing. It's also a bit scary.

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[> Re: Parents -- Elizabeth Hansen, 12:11:02 04/04/07 Wed

I agree! The power of perception is incredible! It is similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy. As part of my training and reading, I have dealt a lot with the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the idea that whatever you believe about how you will do is actually in itself a predictor of how you in reality will do. For example, as a parent or as a teacher, if you repeatedly tell your children that they are stupid and that whatever they are dealing with is too hard for them, they will start to believe that and do poorly on it. However, if you send positive messages about how smart the child is and how well they are going to do, the child's performance will actually increase. There is such power in one's own confidence. This is where the line "mind over matter" seems to be quite iterally true.

To respond to the idea of reciprocal socialization, I find it IS inevitable to spend a large amount of time with someone (even a small child) and not have your own tendencies be altered a bit. For example, think of even the type of voice that you slip into when talking to a small child or even a dog.

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[> [> Praise Effort not Intelligence -- Tish Colvin, 06:56:37 04/05/07 Thu

Elizabeth - Just a word of caution in response to your comment "However, if you send positive messages about how smart the child is and how well they are going to do, the child's performance will actually increase". I took the Motivation course several semesters ago and learned that it is very important to praise a child's EFFORT rather than simply saying he/she is SMART. The reason is this: If the child is praised for being smart, then when he encounters difficulty (which he inevitably will) he will think he's stupid and won't persist. However, if a child is praised for trying hard, when he encounters difficulty, he will be more likely to simply try harder.

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