Kenneth Barish, Ph.D.

How to engage children’s interests and support their strengths. Most parents would agree that children are likely to thrive in a family atmosphere of “positiveness” – when parents are able to be supportive and encouraging, and nurture in their children positive expectations for their futures. (1) In the daily life of many families, however, positiveness has been eroded.…

Principles of positive character development in children Paul Tough has written an excellent book on the importance of character to children’s academic success (How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). Tough documents the devastating effects of adverse childhood experiences on children’s ability to cope with stress, and he reports on recent educational programs…

Helping children learn to accept defeat gracefully In this week’s post, I would like to share some thoughts on an important aspect of children’s emotional development and a source of distress in many parent-child relationships – winning and losing at games. Everyone who plays games with children quickly learns a first lesson: how important it…

Guidelines for helping children develop self-discipline with their homework For this back-to-school season, I would like to offer some advice about one of the most frequent problems presented to me in over 30 years of clinical practice: battles over homework. I have half-jokingly told many parents that if the schools of New York State no longer required…

Empathy helps children bounce back In previous posts, I have emphasized the importance of parents’ responsiveness to their children’s emotions – children’s positive emotions of interest and pride as well as their painful feelings of sadness, anger, and shame. In recent years, some parent advisors have argued that we now pay too much attention to our children’s feelings. The critics believe…

When talking about children’s emotions, it is difficult to avoid saying things that are not already commonly known, or even common sense. Recent advances in the psychology and neuroscience of emotions, however, now offer us a new understanding of the nature of emotion. In childhood and throughout life, our emotions guide our thoughts and our…

Children need to know that we are proud of them. Discussions of children’s motivations and behavior too often overlook the importance of feelings of pride and shame. A child’s need to feel proud, and to avoid feelings of shame, is a fundamental motivation, and remains fundamental, throughout her life. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance…

How we can strengthen our children’s effort and motivation to learn. Last week, I discussed the problem of a child’s lack of motivation and effort. In today’s post, I will offer five principles for helping children with this common, but often difficult, problem. When parents ask, “Why isn’t he motivated? Why doesn’t he care?” the answer is almost always,…