In his upcoming book “Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others,” sociologist and Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky wants to help minimize the harm we often do to one another with seemingly innocuous comments.
One of Galinsky’s focuses is what parents should and shouldn’t say to raise successful, well-adjusted kids.
In an interview with CNBC Make It, he identified one frequently used remark that has an outsized effect on a child’s confidence.
“One phrase that I think we try to use in a motivational way but we don’t realize how damaging it is for kids is ‘I’m disappointed in you,'” he says.
Parents usually deploy it when they want to correct a behavior, but saying it can actually cause the opposite to happen.
This is because it instills kids with a sense of shame, and shame is not a productive emotion, Galinsky says: “If we make our kids feel shame, that’s never a good thing.”
‘Shame leads to avoidance’
Shame doesn’t encourage critical thinking or problem solving. It’s “debilitating and destabilizing,” Galinsky says. Guilt, on the other had, can motivate kids to find a solution.
“Guilt leads to repair, but shame often leads to