Mind in the Making Quotes

“There’s a basic mechanism for learning: [when] we find something interesting to us, we try to control it, we try to make it happen again, we try to change it, or we try to manipulate it. You see very early in babies—that they’re trying to reproduce interesting things; take control of interesting things. In a lot of our schools, the teacher tells us what we have to know, and then we repeat it. That’s not very interesting.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“The mother discusses the past experience in rich detail. She asks lots of open-ended questions, which the researchers call “wh” questions: why, what, where, or who questions. For example, after a trip to the zoo, a highly elaborative parent might ask: “Who did you go to the zoo with? What animals did you see there?” This kind of question differs from yes/no “just the facts” questions, such as “Did you like the zoo?” By being asked questions, the child is invited to participate in the conversation, or co-construct it. The mother often repeats what the child says (“You saw a lion!”), thus encouraging the child to say more. As they go back and forth, the mother provides feedback to the child as well as more information: “The lion was growling. Was that a scary noise?” The mother shows a genuine interest in what the child is saying.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“One of the most beneficial things that brain research has done is it’s made it very hard for us to split cognition from emotion. For example, the areas of the brain most involved in memory—the quintessential cognitive function—are strongly tied to the emotion areas. Carol Dweck of Stanford University reiterates this point: neuroscience shows that we can’t carve people up—there isn’t the cognitive person, the emotional person, the motivational person, the social person. All of these co-occur in the brain.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“Rather than praising their personalities or intelligence (“You are so smart” or “artistic” or “athletic”), criticizing them (“You are so stupid” or “uncoordinated”), or attributing their accomplishments to luck, we can praise their efforts or strategies.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“children, especially as they get older, should be increasingly involved in coming up with solutions for facing challenges.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“When children get older, they can come up with solutions for dealing with other stresses, such as what will help them if they get upset before a test or when going to a new place. If they’re asked in a calm moment, and if they know you’ll take their ideas seriously, most children have creative solutions for managing their own challenges.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“social referencing,”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“To promote children’s curiosity, be careful not to jump in too quickly to fix things they’re struggling with, since working with the “confounding” situation is where critical thinking is promoted. Instead, where possible, help them figure out how they can resolve it for themselves.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“Robert Siegler of Carnegie Mellon University has”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“Ultimately, they found that for babies younger than six months, there’s a three-to-one ratio—they can differentiate between four and twelve; for six-month-olds there’s a two-to-one ratio (babies can differentiate between eight and sixteen or between sixteen and thirty-two); and with nine-montholds, it’s a smaller ratio—differences of eight and twelve. Spelke”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“The way [we conduct naming experiments is] to show the child two pictures, [for example, of] a baby and a doggie. You ask, “Where’s the baby?” Or “Where’s the doggie?” However, if [you] change the sentence a little bit and you say, “There’s a ball over there,” and put [the word “ball”] in the middle instead of at the end [of the sentence], they fall apart completely. They can’t get it. Fernald”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“Mothers, [fathers, and other caregivers] who are attentive to their children’s gestures have children who pick up words a little faster.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“mothers (mothers were more likely to be the focus of studies than fathers in that era) who helped the older child understand the baby by saying things like “The baby is crying. Why do you think he’s crying? Do you think he’s hungry or needs his diaper changed? Let’s try to feed him and see if he stops crying” had children who were more likely to fight less and get along better as they grew up.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs

“For example, in the Marshmallow Test, a classic study conducted by Walter Mischel of Columbia University, when children were given a choice between one marshmallow now or two marshmallows later, some could wait for the larger treat and some just couldn’t. Those who could wait were more likely to do better in many ways as they grew up, including pursuing their academic and personal goals with less frustration and distraction.”
― Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs