Think back to when you were in a classroom, and the teacher set a difficult problem. Which of the two following answers is closer to the way you reacted?

A: Oh no, this is too hard for me. I’m not even going to seriously try.

B: Ah, this is quite difficult but I like to push myself. Even if I don’t get the answer right, maybe I’ll learn something in the attempt.

The psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University gave a group of children problems that were slightly too hard. One group reacted positively, said they loved challenge and understood that their abilities could be developed. She says they had a “growth mindset”. But another group felt that their intelligence was being judged and they had failed. They had a “fixed mindset” and were unable to imagine improving.

Professor Dweck believes that, for years, children have been praised for their intelligence or talent, but this makes them sensitive to failure. They want to please by getting high grades, without interest in learning. The solution is to praise the process that children are engaged in: making an effort, using learning methods and improving. This way they will become better and achieve more.

Psychologists have been testing these theories. Students were taught that if they left their comfort zone and learned something new and difficult, they will be more intelligent. These students made faster progress than a control group. In another study, unsuccessful school children were using growth mindset techniques for a year. The results were astonishing. They came top in a regional test, beating children from much more advanced background. These children had previously felt that making an effort was a sign of being stupid, but they came to see it as the key to learning.

So, back to our original question. If you answered B, well done — you already have a growth mindset. If A, don’t worry; everyone is capable of becoming better with a little effort and self-awareness.

A simple gesture can be formed into a child’s memory so quickly that it will cause the child to give a false answer to a question accompanied by that gesture. A new finding suggests that parents, social workers, psychologists and lawyers should be careful with their hands as well as their words.

Gestures can be as informative as speech, but hand gestures are so common that we rarely notice we’re using them.

“While memories of both adults and children are easy to react to suggestions, those of children are known to be particularly influenced.” said lead researcher Sara Broaders of Northwestern University, “Kids are used to looking to adults to tell events for them and can be misled even if not intentionally.”

Previous research, for example, has shown that detail-loaded questions often cause false answers; when asked, say “Did you drink juice at the picnic?”, the child is likely to say “yes” even if no juice had been available. It is not that the child is consciously lying, but rather the detail is quickly formed into his or her memory.

To avoid this problem, social workers have long been advised to ask children only open-ended questions, such as “What did you have at the picnic?”. But an open-ended question paired with a gesture, briefly meaning a juice box, is treated like a detailed question. That is, children become likely to answer falsely.

And it isn’t just a few kids: 77% of children gave at least one piece of false information when a detail was suggested by an ordinary gesture. Gestures may also become more popular when talking with non-fluent language users, such as little kids. Broaders said, “As hand movements can impart meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases, it certainly seems reasonable that adults would gesture more with children.”

In general, Broaders advises parents and other adults to try to be aware of your hands when questioning a child about an event. Otherwise, you might be getting answers that don’t reflect what actually happened.

New research found that children with positive, early interactions with their care givers - characterized by warmth, responsiveness, and a stimulating home environment -were at reduced risk of childhood obesity.

“A lot of the discussion around childhood obesity and other health risks focuses on identifying and studying the exposure to risk,” said Professor Brandi Rollins. ”We took a strength-based approach in our analysis. We found that a supportive family and environment early in a child’s life may outweigh some of the cumulative (累计的)risk factors that children can face. ”

The study recently appeared in the journal Pediatrics. In the article, Rollins analyzed data from over 1,000 mother-child pairs and found that children’s early exposures to family psychosocial assets (有价值的 事物)- including a quality home environment, emotional warmth from the mother, and a child’s ability to self-regulate - reduced the risk of developing childhood obesity.

“Research on parenting has shown that these types of family assets influence children’s behavior, academic success, career, and-not surprisingly - health,” Rollins said. “It’s inspiring to know that, by providing a loving, safe environment, we can reduce the risk that children will develop obesity.”

This work is based on research in parenting and child development. Responsive parenting, one of the family assets measured in the study, involves responding to children in a timely, sensitive, and age-appropriate manner based on the child’s presenting needs. This study focused on childhood obesity, but the researchers said that parents may improve many outcomes for their children by learning responsive-parenting skills. Knowledge of responsive-parenting skills, however, may not lead directly to implementing those skills in the home.

“No one can read a pamphlet (小册子) about cars and suddenly expect to drive,” said Rollins. “Driving is a skill that requires education and practice. The same is true of responsive parenting. Public health professionals, clinicians, and researchers must collaborate to help families develop psychosocial assets, including responsive parenting and a structured home environment. This could improve childhood obesity rates and other important quality-of-life outcomes,” she continued.