I have quite a bit of experience with Toastmasters. I joined many years ago with the hope of improving my public speaking. After one of my speeches, the evaluation I received was harsh. Constructive or not, the critique was hard to take, and I took it personally. I felt defeated and, quite frankly, my feelings were hurt. It was several months before I attended another session.
Rather than taking the feedback for what it was—an opportunity to improve my skills and become a better speaker—instead, I lost out on the chance to learn. I let the feedback get the best of me; I didn’t leverage it as motivation to improve.
I learned many things from my time with Toastmasters, and one was the value of good feedback. Another was that the maturity to accept feedback must be taught and practiced. Welcoming the critique of others is hard for adults, even when it’s well-intentioned. So naturally, we can expect that children will struggle with it too. But the feedback our children receive from other teachers and us is vital to their growth and development. So as parents, we must learn how to deliver our feedback effectively, and we’ll need to train our children on how to accept it with openness and wisdom.
While feedback can be defined in several ways, for our purposes, we’ll discuss the validation and/or critique that parents give to children in response to their work or performance. The way parents deliver their feedback is as important as the specific words used. It’s possible to have good intentions, but when feedback is poorly given, it can be harmful and not helpful. It must be provided in a way that is affirming as well as clear. Parents must learn to effectively deliver their feedback in ways that will build their children up while still getting across the right message.
The importance of a safe environment
It’s important to foster a welcoming, safe environment in the home for intaking and processing feedback. Especially between a child and parent, the feedback loop needs to be healthy, constructive and regular. To do this, we must guard against giving feedback in anger. We need to be level-headed and in control of our emotions so we can frame the discussion for our child and so our child knows the feedback is meant to be constructive and not hurtful.
Keep in mind that we all have an innate fear of being evaluated by others. We all want to be fully accepted as we are! This inborn desire can inhibit our children’s ability to accept feedback. But when critique is delivered in love, it’s a lot easier to swallow.
You’ll want to put on your modelling hat and show your young learner not only how to give good feedback but how to receive it as well. You can do this by opening yourself to hearing whether or not you’re delivering your feedback in a way that is helpful to your child.
Ask them for ways to improve how you give feedback. A child’s personality and unique disposition will determine the style of feedback that will be most effective for them. You’ll want to be flexible, teachable and willing to alter your style if your initial attempts fall flat.
Using nouns vs. verbs to give feedback
In a New York Times article, Dr. Adam Grant, a Harvard graduate and an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School, introduced the idea of praising with nouns instead of verbs. To help explain this idea, let’s start with a quick refresher on basic grammar.
A noun is an identifier for a person, place, object or concept identifier. A verb, on the other hand, is a word that communicates an action or a condition. As it relates to how we give feedback to our children, good examples of noun phrases are “you’re kind-hearted” or “you’re a big helper.” Conversely, the alternate verb phrases are “you’ve been kind today” and “you’ve been helpful this afternoon.”
While seemingly a subtle distinction, Dr. Grant describes why it’s so impactful. In his article, Dr. Grant shares that it is “22 to 29 percent more effective” to encourage children with nouns than verbs. He adds that “When our actions become a reflection of our character, we lean more heavily toward the moral and generous choices. Over time it can become part of us.”
While using nouns to praise positive behaviour can be effective, when it comes to giving negative feedback, it’s generally better to use verbs. Using verbs to describe the specific behaviour that needs improvement, rather than labelling the child with a negative trait, can be more helpful in addressing the behavior without damaging the child’s self-esteem.
Consider the difference between these negative noun and verb phrases. If your child is told, “You’re a poor math learner,” this thinking can become part of their identity. These negative sentiments are strong and can have the wrong kind of staying power. But instead, if your child hears, “You didn’t do well on this one test,” the impact will probably be temporary. Your child will be much less likely to internalize and latch onto the second critique. More so, using a verb phrase can be more effective in communicating what needs to change without making the child feel like their behaviour is a reflection of their character.
Give feedback to guide your child forward
A parent’s feedback provides the scaffolding for how a child will manage their inner monologue. Consider, as an example, a discussion you may have with your child about their goals. Your feedback can encourage them not just to focus on where they are now but to reflect on how far they’ve come. Help them to look back and see where they started and consider how much they’ve progressed. This kind of feedback can spur them on to reach the finish line. You’re essentially equipping them with language that can translate to positive and affirming self-talk.
It’s vitally important that feedback is both given and received effectively. We all must develop this set of skills in order to grow into successful, thriving adults. Once your family has established a healthy feedback loop in your home, your child will be on the path to developing a wise mindset towards the value of feedback in their life.
Dr. Wallace Panlilio II, Ph.D., co-author of the forthcoming book, Wisest Learners (Parent Edition): Unlock the Secrets to Your Child’s Academic Success, specializes in online learning, best practices and parenting. With 14 years of experience as a headmaster at an IB World School, he’s recognized as an educational visionary, driving lifelong learning and growth.
Dr. Artyom Zinchenko, Ph.D., co-author of Wisest Learners (Parent Edition): Unlock the Secrets to Your Child’s Academic Success, is an accomplished cognitive neuroscientist who employs various neurophysiological methods in his research, focusing on cognition-emotion interaction and long-term memory guided attention during visual search.
Fragmento de Wisest Learners (Parent Edition): Unlock the Secrets to Your Child’s Academic Success (Digital Ventures Pte. Ltd. FZ LLC, January, 2024).
imágenes: Depositphotos
