Giving Kids Feedback That They Can Hear and Learn From

Young female school psychologist having serious conversation with smart little boy at her office

I have worked with parents of all types, and pretty universally, we have common goals. As a general rule, you want your children to have better, be better, and struggle less than you did. This means that as parents, we often carry a heavy pressure to pass as much guidance along to our children as possible. My oldest will tell you, I am the queen of the public service announcement. I have an uncanny ability to take a simple message and to expand and complicate it into a long and tedious conversation. I was bred to believe that talking about it more, or more dramatically, meant that you were driving your message home. Sigh. I have to remind myself constantly that this is not the case. Especially in parenting, the goal is to be direct, concise, and constructive in the input that we give to our children. Louder, longer, more emotional, and/or filled with traces of guilt and shame doesn’t make your message more important, impacting, or resonant with your children. It just masks your message and actually makes it harder and harder for your children to benefit from your input. So, today’s blog is to offer some guidance on EFFECTIVE methods to offer constructive criticism to others so that they can benefit from your message. This is specific to parents and children, but the same basic tenets hold true for feedback given to a spouse, partner, co-worker, employee, adult parent, etc.

Interesting points:

*people are more likely to hold on to feedback on what they HAVE DONE more readily than future guidance on what they SHOULD DO

FOSTER AN ENVIRONMENT OF SUPPORT

Being able to create an environment surrounding a child where open communication actually happens is a required element. If you are a “drive by” commenter and criticizer, it is difficult to “share” feedback in a way that involves collaboration. “Your hair is a mess!” is a one-sided conversation. If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the back-and-forth sharing of ideas and walking through problems and solutions alongside your child (because you are more directive), the initial step to feedback success that actually leads to positive change may include backing up and reworking your general communication tactics. Often, the message is less important than the interpersonal style of the messenger. Consider the excellent book below to beef up parent communication skills.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

FOCUS ON GROWTH

It is really easy to serve as an “armchair coach” for our children. This means picking apart the approaches that they chose and telling them what should have happened differently. At least here at Kids BRAIN, my kids (at work and at home) are what I think of as “hard way” learners. They have a reduced ability to learn vicariously (watching, changing their response based on what they see others doing that works or doesn’t work). They tend to have to learn by doing, which usually means making a lot of mistakes and using a harder and more frustrating trial and error approach. This means that offering observations (or all out criticism) about how they have failed offers very little actual guidance.

Instead, children would benefit from feedback that focuses on 1) what happened, 2) what the outcome was, 3) what worked or went well, and 4) what didn’t work as planned or expected. This means being focused on the PROCESS much more than the outcome. The outcome for the choice is just feedback to you about how well your plan led you to your desired outcome. For instance, let’s say you have a child who fails a final exam. This may not be ACTUAL failure. There are lots of ways an exam may turn out poorly; knowing the circumstances surrounding this one piece of data is essentially to actually helping your child learn from it. Some pointed (and calm!) questions about the situation would be needed. What process did they use to study? A child that forgot there was a test and didn’t study at all needs much different guidance than a child that studied 30 minutes per night for 5 days in a row and still failed.

The first child likely needs you to focus on WHY they missed that there was a test or what obstacles stood in the way of their actually preparing for the test to begin with. This failing grade shows that your child failed to PREPARE, not that they don’t know the material. The second child, who actually appeared to have studied (or tried to), will need a lot more questioning about what they studied, how they approached their study sessions, whether what they studies was 1) on the exam but they couldn’t remember it well enough to score well (retention issues? poor study strategies being used?) or 2) wasn’t on the exam or not easily recognized and they didn’t even know how to get started (studies didn’t cover the right material, studied materials that didn’t match what the teacher was asking about).

The final step in this process is to figure out what didn’t work and contributed to the poor grade AND any parts that your child believes did work well. This is a focus on growth. Instead of “Just work harder!” or “Do better,” the message you are passing along is to identifying areas that led to a less desirable outcome or final product so that you can CHANGE your approach. This allows for a far greater chance that your child with adapt and adjust when a similar situation happens again. This is called learning.

You may find that your child put forth strong effort but doesn’t have the skills to build study materials that work. You may find that your forgetful child doesn’t keep track of assignments well and didn’t even see it coming. The approach to growth will mean figuring out what skills, systems, and reminders have fallen apart (or were never there to begin with) so that you can help your child build or rebuild something better for the next round.

This is an academic example but could also be true for the laundry that didn’t get put away, the child late coming home for dinner from a friends’ house, or the teen who doesn’t make the volleyball team. Focus on what happened, what worked, what didn’t, and then the hard part…DON’T JUMP IN WITH A SOLUTION! Let your child take the lead on the problem-solving part. Ask questions that allow them to come up with their own version of a solution. This is also how we learn. “So, you got a 67 on your final. Is that what you were expecting to get? What parts of your study plan worked? What do you think you could have done differently? Do you have the tools/skills you need to do those new elements? What can I do to help?” would all be excellent questions to guide this process.

THE OREO METHOD/FEEDBACK SANDWICHES

This method has a couple of common names, but I prefer the Oreo method. Cookies make me think of kids, what can I say? This is a feedback method where you lead with praise or a positive observation to start the conversation. You then offer your feedback (potentially through a series of questions and answers like in the failed exam sample) or constructive criticism. Finally, you end with a positive comment and praise to finish the message. This of course assumes that the cookie part is your favorite part of the Oreo. If it isn’t, consider that the “middle” is the part where things may get stickier. Regardless of your cookie versus filling preferences, in order to hear and learn from feedback, it is most effective when the messenger is genuine, kind, engaging, and clear. It may take a little soul-searching and skill set training yourself to find this version of you as a parent, but the process of having your child benefit from your experience and input is more about YOU and less about what you are wanting to share.

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