10 Effective Parenting Tips Based On Psychology

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Let’s face it:

Raising a child is not easy.

In fact, it is one of the most challenging jobs a parent can have, but it is also one of the most rewarding.

When it comes to parenting, many of us act on our gut reactions or use the same parenting techniques our own parents used, whether or not these were effective.

Parenting is one of the most researched fields in psychology, yet many parents do not have an understanding of the best and most beneficial ways to raise their children.

Here is a list of 10 parenting principles based on psychology that can help parents raise successful kids without having to spend hours studying psychology books (which most busy and well meaning parents do not have time for):

1. The Rosenthal Effect

A well-known American psychologist Rosenthal has done the following experiment:

He randomly divided some lab rats into two groups: Group A and Group B.

He told Group A’s breeder that the rats in this group were specially bred to be great at running mazes.

At the same time, he told Group B’s breeder that the rats in his group are terrible at mazes.

In truth, there were no differences between the groups of rats at all.

A few months later, the professor tested the rats in both groups by running mazes.

Surprisingly, the rats in Group A did much better at the maze than the rats in Group B.

The rats in Group A were able to get out of the maze and find the food much faster.

Professor Rosenthal was inspired. Can the same effect also happen to people?

He began his research in an ordinary elementary school and randomly selected a group of children.

He then falsely told the teachers that these children had “unusual potential for academic growth.”

Eight months later, the professor came back to the school.

The phenomenon happened again.

The students selected by him scored much higher in tests than the rest of the class.

Why would such a phenomenon happen?

It is through the magical power of suggestion.

[Comment] The higher your expectations for your children, the more likely it is for them to become successful.

Everyone in life receives all kinds of positive or negative psychological suggestions.

Children look up to parents and teachers the most, so their psychological suggestions also have the highest influence.

If children are exposed to long-term, negative, psychological suggestions, their emotions and mental health can be seriously affected.

On the contrary, if teachers and parents place high hopes on their children and give them positive support, their children will gain self-esteem and become self-reliant.

The higher your hopes are for your children, the brighter their futures will be.

2. The Overemphasis Effect

The famous American writer Mark Twain once listened to a pastor’s sermon.

Initially, he felt that the pastor spoke very well. He was impressed and was prepared to make a donation.

After 10 minutes, the pastor had not finished speaking. Mark became impatient and decided to donate only some change.

After another 10 minutes, the pastor still had not finished, so Mark decided not to donate at all.

By the time the pastor finally ended his lengthy sermon and started collecting money, Mark not only did not donate, but also stole 10 cents from the plate.

The phenomenon where a person becomes irritated or impatient due to prolonged lecturing is called the “overemphasis effect.”

[Comment] Don’t hold on to your children’s mistakes.

Overemphasis effects often occur in both family and school education.

For example, when a child makes a mistake, the parent or the teacher will often repeat the same criticism repeatedly.

Over time, the child becomes irritated and even rebellious towards the parent or the teacher.

It is important that parents and teachers do not criticize their children excessively. Adults should respond to their children’s mistakes by criticizing them only once.

If repeated criticism is necessary, don’t simply repeat the same words. Say it from a different perspective.

This way, children will not feel that they are being criticized over the same mistakes.

3. The Deci Effect

A psychologist, Deci, once told such a fable:

A group of children were playing in front of an old man’s house, making a lot of noise.

After a few days, the old man could not stand it anymore.

So, he came out of the house and gave each child 10 cents and said to them, “You make this place very lively. I feel that I am much younger. I am giving you this money as a token of thanks.”

The children were very happy.

The next day, they came again, playing as always.

This time, the old man came out and gave each child five cents.

“Five cents was still reasonable,” the children thought. They still played happily and left after a while.

On the third day, the old man only gave two cents to each child.

The children were furious. “We only get two cents a day. Don’t you know how hard we play?!”

They swore to the old man that they would never come to play for him again!

In this fable, the old man’s method is very simple:

He turned the children’s internal motivation of “playing for their own happiness” into an external motivation of “playing for the money.”

By doing so, he manipulated the behavior of the children.

[Comment] When parents reward their children, the reward should contribute to their education.

The Deci effect often occurs in children’s education.

For example, parents often say to their children, “If you get an A this time, you will be rewarded with a new toy.”

Parents may not realize that this kind of reward can reduce the child’s interest in learning.

Deci calls such behavior as the paradox of achievement: the harder you push, the worse it gets.

Parents should guide their children to establish long-term goals and increase their interest in learning.

Rewards can include things that contribute to their education, such as books and writing instruments, but rewards that do not contribute to their learning are best to be avoided.

4. The North Wind and The Sun Effect

“The North Wind and The Sun” effect stems from a fable written by French writer La Fontaine:

The North Wind and the Sun are competing to see which is stronger of the two.

The challenge was to make a passing traveler remove his cloak.

The North Wind first came with a hard cold blow, but the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter to keep warm.

When the Sun shone, however, the traveler enjoyed the warmth and soon took his cloak off.

The Sun has won the victory not by force, but by meeting the traveler’s needs.

[Comment] Persuasion is better than force.

Educating children using force or intimidation often does not work well.

Persuading children by understanding their perspective will be much more effective.

5. The Barrel Effect

What is the “Barrel” effect?

A wooden barrel is a container made up of several wooden boards on its side.

The amount of water that it can contain depends not on the longest board, but on the shortest board of the barrel.

[Comment] Take time to help your children improve on their weak points.

A child’s strengths in various aspects of life, such as academic subjects and/or personality traits, are likened to the wooden boards of a barrel. Each board is indispensable.

Children’s development should be evaluated not only on their strengths, but on the person as a whole.

Parents should not only focus on developing their children’s strengths, but especially help them improve on their weak points.

This will help their “boards” to become similar in lengths and help them become well-rounded people.

6. The Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne Plant is a factory that manufactures telephone equipments on the outskirts of Chicago.

The work environment provided entertainment systems, medical facilities, and pension plans for its employees. But the workers were still not happy and the production rate was not ideal.

Later, researchers began to conduct experiments attempting to increase the workers’ productivity.

For two years, the experts asked more than 20,000 workers to talk about their work.

The researchers were told to listen patiently to the various opinions and dissatisfactions of the workers.

By conducting these interviews, they received an unexpected result:

The production rate of the Hawthorne Plant has increased significantly.

[Comment] Listen patiently to your children’s complaints and dissatisfactions.

Children inevitably encounter difficulties in their education or in the process of human development.

They often cannot fully express themselves.

Parents should try to make time to talk to their children.

During conversations, be patient and allow the children to express their dissatisfactions in life, such as home environments, schools, teachers, classmates, etc.

When they are able to express their feelings, they will feel emotionally supported by the ones they rely on.

As a result, a bond will be formed and mutual trust will be built.

This will cause them to have a positive attitude and work hard to overcome their difficulties.

7. The Approval Seeking Effect

Everyone seeks to gain others’ approval rather than disapproval.

In order to improve children’s behavior, parents often cannot avoid giving criticisms.

Can it be given in a way that is helpful to the children and at the same time prevent them from having resentments toward the parents?

[Comment] Include praise when giving constructive criticisms.

When teaching their kids, parents inevitably tell them about their shortcomings and mistakes.

However, this way is often not very effective. Young children do not like to receive criticisms.

It is more effective to include praise when giving constructive criticisms.

One popular method is the Sandwich Method:

• The first slice of bread: start off with positive feedback (authentic praise of something they did).
• The meat: provide constructive criticism.
• The second slice of bread: end on a positive note.

When children receive praise, they are more likely to listen to what the parents have to say.

Ending the conversation on a positive note will allow kids to feel positive towards feedback.

8. The Butterfly Effect

The term “Butterfly Effect” was introduced by Edward Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist.

One day, while at work, Lorenz was running a computer simulation model to redo a weather prediction from the middle of the previous run as a shortcut.

He entered the initial condition 0.506 from the printout instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value.

The result was a completely different weather scenario.

Lorenz wrote:

“At one point I decided to repeat some of the computations in order to examine what was happening in greater detail. I stopped the computer, typed in a line of numbers that it had printed out a while earlier, and set it running again. I went down the hall for a cup of coffee and returned after about an hour, during which time the computer had simulated about two months of weather. The numbers being printed were nothing like the old ones. I immediately suspected a weak vacuum tube or some other computer trouble, which was not uncommon, but before calling for service I decided to see just where the mistake had occurred, knowing that this could speed up the servicing process. Instead of a sudden break, I found that the new values at first repeated the old ones, but soon afterward differed by one and then several units in the last decimal place, and then began to differ in the next to the last place and then in the place before that. In fact, the differences more or less steadily doubled in size every four days or so, until all resemblance with the original output disappeared somewhere in the second month. This was enough to tell me what had happened: the numbers that I had typed in were not the exact original numbers, but were the rounded-off values that had appeared in the original printout. The initial round-off errors were the culprits; they were steadily amplifying until they dominated the solution.” (E. N. Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos, U. Washington Press, Seattle (1993), page 134)

The “Butterfly Effect” states:

One very small change, after a certain period of time plus other factors, can develop into extreme differences.

It is derived from the metaphorical example of the flapping of the wings of a butterfly influencing the details of a distant tornado several weeks later.

[Comment] Parents’ conducts in front of their children, however small, can have a great effect on them.

The “Butterfly Effect” illustrates that parents’ behavior toward their children, however small, can have a great influence on them.

By making one small comment or handling one certain matter, parents’ small actions can have a great affect on their children.

If parents’ demeanor is positive, their children’s later behavior in life will be greatly improved. If not, their children’s conduct will be negatively affected.

9. The Power of Suggestion

During the Second World War, the United States did not have enough troops.

As a result, the United States decided to organize the prisoners in prison to fight on the front lines.

For this to work, the United States sent a number of psychologists to prisoners’ training camps to help mobilize the prisoners.

Once they were ready, they were sent to the front lines to fight.

During the training, psychologists did not lecture them much.

Instead, they told the prisoners to write a letter to their closest relatives every week.

The content of the letters were formulated by the psychologists in the following sort of structure:

It described how the prisoner’s performance in prison had been good and how he had changed himself.

The experts asked the prisoners to carefully copy the letters and send them to their closest relatives.

Three months later, the prisoners were sent to the front lines. The experts continued to ask the prisoners to write to their loved ones on how they obeyed the commands and how courageous they were.

The result was shocking:

The prisoners performed much better on the battlefield than the regular army.

Their obedience and bravery in the battle matched what they wrote in their letters.

Later, psychologists referred to this phenomenon as the power of suggestion.

[Comment] Don’t negatively label children.

This psychological principle plays an extremely important role in education.

For example, if we say to our children that “they are stupid” or that “they can’t even do such a simple task” etc, they may turn out to be exactly what we labeled them.

Teachers and parents must use positive language to positively influence children under their care.

10. The Foot in the Door Effect

This is a common occurrence in our everyday life:

When you ask for help from others, it is easy to be rejected if you ask for a big favor from the beginning.

If you start with a smaller request, it is more likely for others to agree. In time, you can ask for additional favors once they agreed to your initial request.

It is more likely to get a person to agree to a large request by having them agree to a modest request first.

Psychologists label this behavior as the foot-in-the-door technique.

[Comment] Help children accomplish tasks by starting with lower requirements.

In educating our kids, we can also use the “foot-in-the-door” technique.

For example, when we ask children to do something, we can give them a task with a lower requirement.

After they have completed the assignment, we can give them some encouragement and rewards.

Then we gradually increase their task requirements.

By doing so, children will work harder to complete their assignments with confidence.

Conclusion

Good parenting improves the health and well-being of children.

By using positive parenting techniques, we can help them find their passion, gain confidence, and have a positive attitude in life.

Parenting with psychology based scientific knowledge is by no means a one-size fits all strategy.

Every child is different. You can and should adjust your parenting style accordingly.

It may even take some time for you to adjust your ways of parenting.

If you can keep working on them, even though you may only use some of these parenting techniques some of the time, you will still be moving in the right direction.

What have you found helpful in raising kids? Do you have any tips and tricks that weren’t mentioned in this post?