Category: Book review

by Ross W. Greene, Scribner, New York, 2016

Whether you are a parent and have a child you are raising or just looking for a way to work with other adults, the ideas in this book will give you a technique for promoting collaboration to find a solution to a problem.

“The most crucial task of your child’s development is to figure out who she is — her skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals and direction — get comfortable with it, and then pursue and live a life that is congruent with it.” (p. 161)

A parent’s job is to help a child grow and develop.  We teach our children based on our own set of values, but what do we do when the child has problems with our expectations, or for that matter his/her own expectations of what she/he should be able to do?  This is where a parent needs to step in and help the child.

Two of the basic principles, according to Greene, are that “kids do well if they can” and that “doing well is preferable”.  So if a child (or perhaps a friend or colleague) is not doing well, don’t blame it on laziness or lack of motivation, but dig deeper to find out which skills are missing for the person to be able to get the job done.

The method that Greene recommends has three steps to helping children grow through managing difficulties:

1. Showing empathy for the person or child you want to help by listening to what their concerns are and their point of view on the problem
2. The adult also has to express their concerns and point of view as these must be considered too.
3. Then the child and the adult need to work together to come up with realistic and mutually satisfactory solutions.  This is collaboration.

The author has a lot of good examples, both of good and poor dialogues between adults and children of various ages.

I wish I had had this book when my children were younger. Too often as a parent or a teacher I came up with a “solution” to a “problem” that quite often didn’t work at all.  We have to be better at working with the person who has the problem, or the incompatibility to expectations, to find solutions that will work for both parties.

Boka som er omtalt her er ikke oversatt til norsk, men om du kan lese engelsk og du har med oppdragelse av barn, enten som forelder eller lærer, er boka anbefalt.  Litt om hva boken handler om.

Det er viktig at når et barn ikke klarer en oppgave, enten hjemme eller på skolen, at  voksnen lytter til hva barnas oppfatning av problemet er.  Veldig ofte vil barna kunne komme med innspill om hva det trenger for å komme seg videre.  Den voksen må også fremme sine bekymringer og sammen skal de finne en måte å gå videre.  Om problemet ikke løses med en gang, kan det være behov for flere samtaler og forsøk med å løse problemet.

En forelders arbeid er å hjelpe et barn vokse og utvikle seg.  Vi underviser våre barn basert på våre egne holdninger og verdier. Men hva skal vi gjøre når et barn har problemer med våre forventninger, eller sine egne forventninger om hva has/hun burde klare?  Her er hvor Greene har en metode for en voksen å hjelpe et barn (eller en annen voksen).

To hovedprinsipper som Greene fremmer:

1. barn vil gjøre det bra, om de kan
2. å gjøre ting bra er å foretrekke

Han er opptatt av at barn ofte behandles feil, med løsninger til problemer fra en voksen som ikke ser på problemet fra barnas synsvinkel.  Han har mange eksempler på familier og samtaler, både gode og dårlige. Å si at et barn er lat, eller umotivert, hjelper ikke barna kommer seg videre. Greenes metode har tre trinn for å hjelpe et barn utvikle seg gjennom å håndeter vanskeligheter:

1. Den voksen må vise empati for barnet med å lytte til hva barnets synspunktet er.
2. Den voksen må også si hva den er bekymret for.  Begge sider av saken må tas hensyn til.
3. Da må den voksen og barnet arbeide sammen for å komme med en endring som er både realistisk og gjensidig tilfredsstillende.  Dette er samarbeid.

Jeg ønsker at jeg hadde hatt denne boka når mine barn var yngre.  Alt for ofte som en forelder eller en lærer kom jeg på en “løsning” til et “problem” som ikke fungerte.  Vi må være flinkere til å arbeide med den som har et problem slik at løsning fungere for begge parter.

Susan Cain has written an interesting book (“Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking”, Crown Publishing, 2012) which gave me an awakening to something I hadn’t really considered before and made me feel like I wasn’t the only one in the world who didn’t fit in.  We live in a world where being an extrovert is considered the ideal, and yet it is not the extroverts who are the most innovative or creative.  I’ve noticed this as a teacher – the pupil who talks all the time, is not the one who is the smartest in the class or the most knowledgeable. In fact, the pupil who talks a lot may have problems listening and learning new things, and unfortunately may distract other pupils in the class who would actually like to learn new things.

“Our lives are shaped as profoundly by personality as by gender or race.  And the single most important aspect of personality — the ‘north and south of temperament’ as one scientist puts it — is where we fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.  Our place on this continuum influences our choice of friends and mates, and how we make conversation, resolve differences, and show love.  It affects the careers we choose and whether or not we succeed at them.  It governs how likely we are to exercise, commit adultery, function well without sleep, learn from our mistakes, place big bets in the stock market, delay gratification, be a good leader, and ask ‘what if.’ ” (page 17)

The author continues to explain how especially the American world puts such an emphasis on being extrovert, that introverts will try to hide their own reality to feel part of the extrovert world.

What are some of the characteristics of an extrovert? “The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt.  He favors quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong.  She works well in teams and socializes in groups.” (page 19)

The ideal of the extrovert is seen in offices without walls, project work for everyone, high levels of stimulation and little time for introspection.

Susan Cain has many examples of introverts who have given us scientific theories, art work, literature and businesses. I enjoyed her storytelling and learning how introverts have contributed to our knowledge of how the world works.

If you are an introvert, which I definitely am, here are some of the characteristics according to Susan Cain:

• want less stimulation
• like time to themselves
• work slowly and deliberately
• like to focus on one task at a time
• can have mighty powers of concentration
• relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame
• prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues and family
• listen more than they talk
• think before they speak
• express themselves better in writing than in conversation
• dislike conflict
• have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions

Does all of this sound like you?  If it does, I recommend you read the book.

For those of you who like to watch videos, she gave a TedTalk in 2012: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts

Boken har blitt oversatt til norsk, og heter “Stille – introvert styrke i en verden som aldri slutter å snakke”, utgitt av Pax forlag i 2013.  Når vi lever i en verden der idealet er å snakke mye og være veldig utadvendt, det var veldig godt for meg å lese boken og få bekreftet at den typen jeg er, en “introvert”, er veldig utbredt.  Forfatteren sier at en tredjedel til en halvparten av folket er introvert.  Men det er mange som finner seg mellom ytre punktene og alle er litt annerledes.

Boken anbefales, særlig hvis du er en introvert.