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The last post
was about why we parents should foster optimism in our kids. In a
nutshell: there is a close link between how optimistically kids think
and how healthy and happy they are—and how they perform academically
and athletically, for that matter. This post explains a little more
about what it means to be optimistic or pessimistic and so that we
parents can better foster optimism in our kids.
Martin Seligman has been doing research on optimism for decades, and his book The Optimistic Child
is a great resource for parents. According to Seligman and other
researchers, how optimistic or pessimistic we are amounts to how we
explain life’s events, be they good or bad. There are three basic
dimensions to an explanation: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. The OPTIMISITIC way of understanding why something GOOD happened would explain:
The cause of what just happened as Permanent (so it will reoccur);
And Pervasive (it will affect many other circumstances, too);
And Personal (I made it happen).
On the other hand, the PESSIMISTIC way of explaining why something GOOD just happened would illustrate that:
The cause of what just happened is Temporary (something short-lived caused it – probably won’t happen again);
And Specific (affecting only this situation);
And Impersonal (I didn’t have anything to do with what happened, other people or the circumstances did).
The reverse is also true when something bad happens. A kid trips on
the sidewalk and skins her knee, dirtying her new dress. The pessimist
thinks: “I’m so clumsy – I’m always tripping everywhere, and now I look stupid.”
The cause of her fall is (1) permanent—she sees it as a personality
trait, and therefore it is both (2) pervasive and (3) personal. On the
other hand, the optimist thinks: “Dang! Someone oughtta fix that crack in the sidewalk!”
She’s thinking that a flaw in the sidewalk, not her own inherent
clumsiness, caused her to trip. That crack is (1) temporary; (2)
specific to that moment; and (3) impersonal—she had nothing to do with
it.
