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Home › Articles › Social Development › Bringing the Lessons Home

Bringing the Lessons Home

An Excerpt From Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn – and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less

By Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D.

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How can we help children blossom socially and emotionally?

Look for opportunities to discuss other people's feelings. By explaining how other people would feel if a particular act occurred, you teach your child to take the perspective of others. "If you hit Irving over the head with that truck, he will probably feel very bad and cry. Do you want that to happen?"

Creating a sensitive human being takes work! It often seems a lot easier to just stop vexing and dangerous toddler behavior without explaining what consequences would follow and why, and how someone would feel as a result. Of course, tomorrow someone will probably come out with a video that claims to teach your child how to work and play well with others. But that product would be a drop in the bucket compared with the power that comes from ongoing human relationships where both mind and heart are learning together. What fills the bucket is the interaction children and adults experience: a product of basic social need.

Watch Your Language
One way to bring up the perspectives of others is to ask your child about the characters in the stories you read together. Ask questions such as, "How do you think this person (the character) feels? How would you feel if you were this person? What do you think the person's friends could do to help him to feel better?"

In fact, many of the current social and emotional programs that teach children about how to be a good person use games in which children adopt different perspectives. One example is the Inte


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