To Avoid Materialism... Give Kids Money?

I read a new article about "How To Avoid Raising Materialistic Kids" with interest. This is primarily because my own children appear to be hellbent on embracing our culture of conspicuous consumption. This is despite the fact that I buy my own clothing at Goodwill, buy almost everything else from either eBay, Craigslist, or a Facebook group, and have taken a pledge that aside from essentials and safety items, I will not shop for an entire year. Before I was a parent, I frowned smugly at parents whose children shrieked in the checkout line about wanting toys, taking comfort in the knowledge that my own kids would never behave that way, since they would have learned from experience that I never acquiesce to screaming tantrums, especially over low quality little toys. It turns out this theory was remarkably far from the truth. Kids love to throw tantrums and will throw them over anything and everything, logical behavior be damned.

I also read the original article, which pointed out additional past research showing that decreasing kids' exposure to television advertisements would decrease their materialism as well. Score! Yet another reason to be happy I live in a TV-less household, despite the fact that as the article states, this is "difficult to implement."

These recent studies suggest that the practice of gratitude can help children to develop less materialistic attitudes, in addition to increasing gratitude, and in the end, increasing generosity. I did notice that the way kids were motivated to take the study was that they were given $10, in $1 bills. At the end they had the option to donate some of this money. The article spends little time discussing this portion of the study, but as I reviewed the details, I noted that the children in the intervention group gave an average of two thirds of their earnings away. This seems very touching, particularly considering that they were only told that the money would go, generically, "to charity." Of additional interest in my mind was the fact that even in the control group, children gave on average more than 40% of their earnings away to charity. The overall generosity of all these kids was just amazing. I very clearly remember, as an adolescent, digging through the car seats in my car so that I could buy less than one dollar's worth of gasoline. I also remember scrounging up a few coins from various stashes so that I could walk with my friends to the Food Bag and buy a fountain soda. I feel ashamed to say that I doubt I would have been as generous as many of these children were.

In short, apparently you can motivate kids with money to decrease their materialism (through gratitude exercises) - and there is hope for this generous younger generation yet...

In Shock: With Resilience and Grit, Critically Ill Patients Recover

I'm reading In Shock, an excellent non fiction novel by physician author Rana Awdish about what happens when a critical care physician becomes critically ill. I haven't finished the book yet, but one thing that stands out in what I've seen so far is how little we think to credit the patient for their role in healing, and how being a patient who shows resilience and grit can change the way a critical illness impacts your life.

In Shock is full of examples of how Awdish used her own "fiery, molten strength" to survive and recover from being critically ill. First in how she tries to communicate her own understanding of the depth of her illness to her care team, and then in her approach to the rehabilitation process after being discharged from the hospital. She pushes herself through pain, through boredom, through one set of tragic circumstances after another. At times, she feels sorry for herself, feels powerless, and feels a sense of hopelessness, but she doesn't let it take root and grow.

As an emergency physician, I very frequently encounter people who have a much less healthy response to being ill. Although often frustrating, it's hardly surprising, given that so many people in the communities where I work suffer from life circumstances that serve to seriously undermine any coping skills they might have had to begin with, like living in crushing poverty, enduring abuse in many forms, and suffering from mental health diagnoses and addictions - many of which are closely related to the traumas they experienced in the former situations.

One passage from In Shock particularly highlighted how a healthy mind can be so important in a healthy response to being sick or injured, or just in a challenging and tragic situation:

"I learned that what was true of pain was true of most feelings. I didn't have to just submit to them, I was actually central to their construction. I could build a story of sadness and read it to myself, or I could choose not to...I could redefine my identity and claim my desired emotional state."

I believe that often people do consider how a lack of resources or lack of psychiatric stability affects the ability to treat or heal disease. Imagine the potential health and cost benefits from cultivating resilience and grit in a population, regardless of their income level, social standing, lack or presence of mental health issues?

The Paradox of High Earning Parents

A recent NYT column made mention of "the paradox of high earning parents" - suggesting that in wealthy households, parents pay more lip service to equality, but in fact they act in more traditional ways when it comes to roles within the home. The reference cited for this is a book from 2014 about the schedules of physicians, nurses, EMTs, and CNAs, called Unequal Time. Without being able to look inside the book, it's hard to refute this argument, but it is hard to see how the NYT article can draw conclusions about all wealthy households based on the literature related to doctors who are, according to the book blurb, "largely male" and reportedly have the flexibility to fulfill traditional roles as breadwinners by leaning on their wives and domestic workers. Although I haven't conducted research on the subject, I do have a great deal of life experience as a physician mother who is highly networked via social media with other physician mothers, and I can easily say anecdotally that physician moms also fulfill the breadwinner role by leaning on family members and domestic workers for childcare. The book also claims that largely male physicians work long hours "because they gain respect from colleagues for doing so", while the largely female CNAs also work long hours but mainly because the penalties imposed for not doing so are very high for them. Try surveying physician moms and I very much doubt that you'll find the top reason for working long hours to be gaining respect from colleagues. In fact, I've never heard a colleague of mine admit to working long hours for any reason other than actually enjoying their work, or money.

Back to the "Upshot" article, entitled "Where Boys Outperform Girls in Math: Rich, White, and Suburban Districts." It's relevant to the so-called paradox of high earning parents because this article describes a Stanford study, the results of which are quite succinctly explained in its title. The study was not designed to investigate the reasons behind this phenomenon, however it speculates that in areas where men tend to have more high powered science and math based jobs, boys may receive the message that they should also aim to succeed in math and science. It would be very interesting to hear more about what effect having a mother in a science or math based career may have on children in high earning families. In another fascinating snippet, the authors cite a study done on data from about 20 years ago showing that high earning families enroll children in more stereotypical extracurricular activities. I'm currently conducting an informal poll in a group of 71,000 physician moms to see what they say about this. Based on what I've seen of how children's media and toys have changed in the past 20 years, I believe that norms have significantly shifted in that time, even though most people probably don't feel there have been great strides made in increasing gender equality since the year 2000.

Can You Resist Eating a Marshmallow? And Does It Matter, Anyhow?

I've read that if a child can resist eating something sweet placed in front of them, with the promise that willpower will lead to a reward of more sweets, it suggests that they have inner strength and are destined for life success. My response to this, since becoming a parent, is a despairing eye roll, because it is abundantly clear to me that neither one of my children would pass this test, even for a moment. In fact, my children are willing to risk significant negative implications to steal candies, should the opportunity present itself. I have decided not to guess what this might mean about their destiny.

A study that has just come out by Watts, Duncan, and Quan, suggests that this type of test (classically termed "the marshmallow test") is not an accurate predictor of either future stamina or achievement. Instead, it's a reflection of the child's privilege. In other words, a child is willing to wait to eat a marshmallow if he or she comes from a wealthier household, or one with more educated parents.

At first glance, this seems like a very rational realization with regard to the original study. Of course, if kids are poor, they'll be hungry and used to scarce resources, and want to eat any nearby marshmallow right away instead of waiting. The original authors were foolish not to more carefully account for the effects of income level on children's abilities to delay gratification. As I considered it further, though, I've known many privileged and wealthy children who don't seem to have much ability to delay gratification at all. Isn't that the definition of being "spoiled"? What's the difference between a spoiled kid and a rich kid who can delay gratification?

I've known many privileged and wealthy children who don't seem to have much ability to delay gratification at all. Isn't that the definition of being "spoiled"? What's the difference between a spoiled kid and a rich kid who can delay gratification?

The Atlantic Article I linked to above ["Why Rich Kids Are So Good At The Marshmallow Test", June 1 2018] notes "This new paper found that among kids whose mothers had a college degree, those who waited for a second marshmallow did no better in the long run—in terms of standardized test scores and mothers’ reports of their children’s behavior—than those who dug right in." Thus, the spoiled kids and those who were rich but 'unspoiled' were equally successful by the measures of this study. I would be interested in an deeper exploration of the these two groups to investigate whether there were actually differences beyond those two measured variables. In the meantime, though, perhaps the easiest thing is to conclude that 4 year olds can't resist marshmallows, and that's no cause for concern.

All material © Alison Schroth Hayward, MD. All rights reserved.

Improving Academic Performance Using A Simple Intervention

Researchers are keenly interested in trying to create an intervention that could be used in schools across the nation, to build on established psychology literature and try to use the findings in a practical way to impact performance of students. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a quick intervention that only took an hour and a half out of the school curriculum could significantly change the students' achievement? Researchers Paunesku, Walton, and colleagues believed that if they could prove such an effect, the intervention might surely be adopted at schools everywhere - what we call a 'scalable' intervention because it can be scaled up from a small test group and propagate easily to other institutions and communities.

In their study, these researchers assigned students to one of several groups. In the control group, there was a 45 minute session teaching them that different parts of the brain have different roles to play in memory and intelligence. The second session focused on how it was important to do well in school so that you could make better money in the future. There were three intervention groups. One of them had an intervention designed to teach them a growth mindset, by describing how the brain can grow and reorganize based on hard work and challenges. Another group had a "sense of purpose" intervention, which discussed how important it was to perform well academically in order to achieve what the researchers called "beyond the self life goals." Instead of focusing on how academic success could help a student personally, this group discussed how it could impact the world in a positive way, set a good example for others, and make family members proud. The final intervention group was taught about the growth mindset and about gaining a sense of purpose.

This study spanned 13 schools in a number of different regions, which reportedly had an economically diverse group of students, a good attempt by the authors to try to ensure generalizability. The findings of the study were that the interventions made a positive impact on the students' grades across all subjects, and their GPAs - which bore out the assertion that even a simple and brief intervention could make a difference. The kids who had education both on growth mindset and on their "sense of purpose" did not do so well. as those who had just one of the classes, which suggests that multiple attempts at mindset intervention are less effective, perhaps because of dilution of the messages.

Take home points: even a 1 hour intervention can make a positive difference in a child's performance in school, if they learn proven lessons designed to boost sense of purpose and teach growth mindset. This suggests that parents can teach children about these concepts as well, without using an extensive curriculum. In my experience as an educator, messages that are reinforced are retained best - I suspect results could have been even better if students had had periodic reminders about the concepts they learned. I also liked how the curriculum asked the students to imagine another student who was struggling with their work and how they could help. Putting these psychological lessons into practice by teaching them to others, or even considering an imaginary scenario in which they could be relevant, are way to help cement them into the students' minds.

All material © Alison Schroth Hayward, MD. All rights reserved.

Growth Mindset plus Autonomy and Rewards = Success

New research was published this month on the growth mindset. A study was performed in India to determine whether it would make an impact to teach children about the growth mindset depending on what sort of rewards they received for achievement. In this study by Chao et al, 1000 students from low socioeconomic status communities were given ten hours of education about the brain - essentially reinforcing the concept of growth mindset - that if you work hard, you can achieve a goal by studying and creating connections in your brain.

The control group learned about the heart in a similar number of sessions. These students, who were all third graders, were further divided into three subgroups based on rewards for good school attendance. The control group received nothing as a reward for attendance. The other two groups were given material rewards but each with a different emphasis. In one of the reward subgroups, the students were told they would receive an award for good attendance, which their teacher would choose for them from a selection of rewards. The final subgroup was told they could choose their own reward if they achieved good attendance and that the attendance would be tracked publicly, to encourage them to be self-motivated to attend.

Student performance was then measured on a standardized test, which the students had taken before. Results of the study revealed that students in the growth mindset training group who were allowed to choose their own reward had their performance augmented - IF they were students with a prior history of high achievement. The low achieving students did not get the same effects.

My take: learning about a growth mindset through a few simple hours of teaching and lesson reinforcement can be encourage students to work harder, but only if they were high achievers at the outset. Since all participants in the study came from low socioeconomic status communities, this implies the students were succeeding despite the odds being stacked against them - perhaps these students already had the trait of resilience? This study may not be generalizable to students from high socioeconomic status backgrounds or who live in high income countries. Chao, M.M., Visaria, S., Dehejia, R., & Mukhopadhyay, A. (2017). Do rewards reinforce the growth mindset? Joint effects of the growth mindset and incentive schemes in a field intervention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(10), 1402-1419.

All material © Alison Schroth Hayward, MD. All rights reserved.

Intelligence Is Overrated

Forget intelligence. Resilience is what our children need. As a physician, I'm reminded of this on a daily basis, but I also know so many poignant examples from my personal life. I may not be a senior citizen yet, but I've been around the block long enough to see the trajectories of many people's lives from childhood to adulthood. Social media and my own little fetish with following the stories of acquaintances have allowed an unprecedented ability to see how things turned out for any human being I've encountered through my lifetime. Based on these observances, my biggest question as a scientist and physician has been: why do some people succeed in the face of every obstacle, while others have every opportunity but still struggle?

It appears quite logical that children who go through traumatic experiences growing up may suffer a multitude of consequences on their health and well being. Much research, and rightfully so, is being devoted to determining how resilience can be cultivated in these individuals despite their circumstances. That's not what I intend to write about here.

I decided to write about whatever I come across while investigating what I consider to be the most pressing issue I face as a parent. My children have almost every privilege imaginable. They are blessed and they want for nothing, except things they don't really need! Parenting them ought to be basically just a matter of ensuring that they survive to age 18, right? Not in my mind. They're just toddlers now, but already I have the sense that they are smart, passionate, funny, energetic, and loving. And yet, I've seen so many of their slightly older peers who probably started out with all the same attributes, but ended up crushed by self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and years of broken relationships with people who tore them down instead of building them up. I've seen this so many times over, despite being amongst the company of the elite for much of my life - people whose parents had the wealth, power, and influence that one would think could engender success for any child they bore. Perhaps there is little that parents can do to influence some of these outcomes, but the research at this point seems to be limited.

All I know today, as I write this, is that cultivating a growth mindset and internal locus of control appear to be of critical importance in fostering resilience. I'll plan to talk about both of those things at length in future writings - relaying anything I can find out about the science of what is known on these subjects. However, I'm also keen to find out whether there are other ways in which parents can prepare their kids to bounce back. To understand that the road to success is paved in failure. To fall down seven times, but stand up eight.

Other parents may try to get their kids into the best schools, the most rigorous classes. They may get tutors and enroll in after school programs. Their goals and objectives involve things their children will be able to put on their resume, like Ivy League schools and prestigious internships. Personally, I could care less about that. I know there is no magic in the Ivy League. I've reviewed thousands of resumes while hiring for a variety of positions, and I know that the names on the resume mean little when compared to attitude, motivation, passion, flexibility, and creativity. I also know that these things aren't necessarily what school curricula teach. That's why I say, let's forget about trying to make our kids smarter. I'm not very concerned about whether my children will earn a high income, if they earn enough to support themselves and their families. I'm investigating how to raise emotional ninjas. Whether I can put this information into practice is another question entirely, but I'll share anything I find out on the way with you.

All material © Alison Schroth Hayward, MD. All rights reserved.