What’s an Explanatory Style you ask? It’s the natural way in which people, adults and children, explain the day to day and moment to moment events that make up life. In other words, it’s the old ‘Is the glass half full or half empty’ approach to explaining why things happen. Another way to look at it is that an explanatory style is the way a person explains positive or negative events to him or herself. This determines whether he or she is optimistic or pessimistic. Your child’s explanatory style is evident in how he or she thinks about the causes of events in their lives. Why is knowing your child’s Explanatory Style important? Because your child’s style is generally going to be more optimistic or pessimistic, and optimistic people are happier, healthier, and more successful in all of the ways we measure success in life. Specifically, research shows that benefits of an optimistic explanatory style include:

• Better academic performance
• Better performance at work and sports
• Increased mental and physical health
• Longer lifespan
• Better relationships with friends and family
• Less angry and irritable
• And teens with an optimistic style abuse substances less often, and have fewer social problems

Because life teaches lessons the hard way, even beginning in the early pre-school years, many children do not fully develop an optimistic explanatory style on their own. However, you can create a learned Optimistic Explanatory Style for your child by learning more about it yourself and modeling optimism. Parental Influence: This is very important. You are their greatest teacher. Researchers have found that there is a strong relationship between a mother’s explanatory style and that of her child. The style we model will be learned by our kids. Children imitate the explanatory style of their parents.

The way people, including children, explain events have three dimensions:

• Permanent vs. Temporary
• Universal vs. Specific
• Internal vs. External Parents who model that the set-backs or defeats in life are Temporary, Situationally Specific, and External to the character of the individual are modeling an optimistic explanatory style.

You’re helping your child see that no set-back is permanent, all encompassing, or an internal character flaw. You are empowering your child to continue to strive to find solutions and to see believe that their persistence will produce a positive outcome. Criticism that Children Receive: Parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults make the biggest impact. If an adult criticizes a rather permanent ability of a child the child is more likely to develop a pessimistic explanatory style. Avoid such all-or-nothing statements such as: “You just can’t learn this.” “You’re just not good at sports.” “You just can’t keep friends for more than a week.” Experiences: Children who have Mastery Experiences are far more likely to develop an optimistic explanatory style. Learned helplessness in children attributes to a pessimistic explanatory style. Recent research indicates that children must see themselves in a realistic light in order for them to successfully challenge their automatic negative thoughts. Disputing a pessimistic explanatory style only works when the thoughts can be checked against reality. The study of optimism in children is relatively new. Research outcomes seem to indicate that optimism can be taught, and learned optimism can be helpful in alleviating and preventing some of the problems of childhood and adolescence.