No Stupid Questions - 18. How Do You Raise a “Likable” Kid?

Episode Date: September 13, 2020

Also: what’s so great about friendship?

If you're not a tiger parent, what animal parent are you? Maybe a mongoose or something? How about a rabbit? I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Stephen Dubner. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions. Today on the show, do bratty kids become bratty adults? When I was growing up, if anybody asked me,

who are the popular kids, I would say, well, Meredith is popular. In which prison is she in today? Also, what makes a good friendship? We remember the same commercial for aluminum siding. Angela, I have a question here from a listener. Would you entertain that? Of course.

This is a listener named Sydney, and she writes to say, It's an ongoing debate I have with my husband. We don't have kids, but do sh**ty kids make sh**ty adults? She continues, I don't like to be around bratty kids, but is there any research that brats actually make worse adults, or does society mold them into likable humans? So, Angela, I find Sydney's question compelling, not just on the specifics of whether, quote, kids become, quote, adults, whatever that might mean, but really the bigger question

of how much of our adult selves was evident and perhaps foreordained by our child selves. I think it's a great question. And it is one of the big questions in all social science. How much is our future life either predicted by or determined by who we are earlier? And if you go back to quotes by philosophers and theologians, there are sometimes these, like, show me the child, I'll show you the man, your character is set like plaster at a very young age. And I think the answer to this question with what we know now about genes, about environment, about life course history is that there is some but not complete stability over our life course

of who we are. I mean, your genes are the same for your whole life, just to point out the obvious, and genes do have an influence on everything about you. But one thing that's not the same at every moment in your life is your experiences. So if you have a really, really shy kid, and you say, hey, what do you think this person is going to be like when they're 35 years old? You can guess better than chance that they're going to be shyer than average, but you're also going to be wrong in a lot of cases. But I think the big question is, let's say that there's a huge childhood deficit on any dimension, social, emotional, intellectual, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What do we know on any of those dimensions about the best ways to, quote, catch up?

Yeah. So one thing to recognize about development is it's not steady and at the same pace all throughout. You can have spurts, like you just grew four inches over the summer and then a plateau and then another spurt. So psychological development is similarly not always as steady and gradual as you might think. And that's relevant to this brattiness question, because you could have a sudden leap forward in maturation where this kid suddenly is a lot more considerate, letting other people actually talk uninterrupted, etc, etc. And if you allow for that kind of spurty development, it also gives you a little bit of sanity, maybe,

right? Like while they're driving you crazy, you're not thinking, well, this pace, we're never going to get to maturity. What are some childhood behaviors or traits that are known to be temporary or fleeting? Well, the Sydney question was about brattiness. And I have to imagine maybe she's talking about like going over to some couple's house with her husband, and then there's like a bratty two-year-old. That is an age where kids really struggle in general with emotion regulation and delay of gratification. And therefore, they're having temper tantrums and eating things they weren't supposed to eat and touching things they weren't supposed to touch all the time. I mean, there's a reason why we call them the terrible twos. And for a

lot of kids, it's like the terrible threes also. But developmentally, most of those kids are just going to grow out of that. Their prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain right behind your forehead, that's going to evolve and develop in pretty amazing ways. And it's going to help that kid control their emotions and their bodies better and better. So I don't think you have to go over to some couple's house, observe their toddler, who's basically being a pain, and call the police because like, eventually, the kid's going to grow up to be a vandal. I think that's developmentally quite normal. And on the basis of one or two dinner parties, I wouldn't want to say anybody's kid is going to be anything other than a great kid.

However, I do want to say this. Even as early as the preschool years, there's a very, very small number of children, percentage-wise, who are called callous unemotional. And it's just what it sounds like. Those kids tend to not care about other people's feelings and then potentially hurt other people when they get older. But to calm the nerves of worried parents out there, it's very rare. I'm really curious whether popularity at a young age, let's say going up through whatever high school, whether that's indicative or predictive of the future. And some research that I've seen indicates that, yes, popularity gives you a number of potential advantages from confidence to network effect and so on. But I've also seen some evidence arguing that popularity is the kind of thing that's a currency that sort of evaporates by the time you're in your 20s and may not serve you that well. So Mitch Prinstein, who is just a terrific psychologist, knows a lot about it. And he

wrote this book called Popular, Finding Happiness and Success in a World that Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships. Mitch Prinstein's thesis here is that there's really at least two kinds of popular. When I was growing up, if anybody asked me, like, who are the popular kids? I would say, well, Meredith is popular. And she was. In which prison is she in today? You know, I googled her recently. I think she's grown up to live a very fine life as a museum curator. But she was super popular. Anyway, there is this kind of popular that most kids think about when you say popular, and that is pecking order popular.

The popular crowd. It's basically the kids who are at the top of the social hierarchy. Usually in movies, they're displayed as both popular and mean, you know, like Mean Girls, for example, my favorite movies. There's another kind of popular, though, that Mitch Prinstein wants to argue is the good kind of popular. And that is like the person who's likable, right? And if you want to get at these kids, you can't ask other children who's popular. You have to say like, who do you like? Sometimes it's called sociometric popularity,

not very catchy. You ask all the kids in sixth grade, who do you like? And then you get the real popularity score. And that is super predictive of lots of good outcomes. So likability is a desirable trait or a positive trait, but pecking order is more like, who can I push around when I'm young? Yeah, and I don't think pecking order is necessarily bad. I think this like 16 Candles movie sort of dramatization of the kids who are high in the hierarchy is that they're always evil.

That's not always true. I can remember in my high school that there were certain nice popular kids. I mean, granted, not all of them. But I do think that kids who are likable when they are young grow up to be relatively likable when they're older on average. And I think that's another thing that parents could actually think like, what can I do to help my kid be more likable? So what can you do? could actually think like, what can I do to help my kid be more likable? So what can you do?

I think the parenting style that has by far the most scientific evidence of it being a good parenting style is called the authoritative parenting style. Did you say authoritarian? I'm going to write that down, being an authoritarian parent. I got to tell you, being an Asian mother, I'm so frequently confused with tiger mom. But no, I don't mean authoritarian parenting, which is, I think, at least the stereotype of tiger parenting, right? Like, you must practice your piano, you must practice it for four hours a day, you must not get below 100 on any exam, you cannot have sleepovers ever, even after the pandemic. I mean, this is not what I'm talking about. And there is a term

in parenting research called authoritarian, and that is very demanding and very low on warmth and low on respect for autonomy is the term, but basically allowing your kids to have their own opinions and their own perspective on life. Let me just clarify, if you're not a tiger parent, what animal parent are you? Gosh, what animal is it that like works all the time and occasionally looks over to see whether their kids are okay? Maybe a mongoose or something? How about a rabbit? I don't know. Rabbit's always twitching. So anyway, authoritative parents, which I will continue to think what animal it is that is represented by this,

but it's this combination of being demanding, just like tiger parents are, just like authoritarian parents are. But the trick is, it's also very warm, and it's very respectful of the kid's autonomy. So I think that if you ask the question, like, what can parents do to help their kids not be bratty? And what can parents do to help their kids be successful and contributors to society? It's always, in the research that I've read, the same answer, which is authoritative parenting. You smack them with one hand and hug them with the other. That's what you're describing. Well, I know it sounds like a contradiction in terms. Like, how can you be demanding but also warm?

I think you know what I mean, though. I do, because a lot of Jewish families are like that also. There's a very high level of expectation and engagement and encouragement. Sometimes, you know, encouragement that feels more like authoritarianism. Or could be perceived as such from the outside. Yes, exactly. But it's also countered with a kind of deep, unconditional love and sense of belonging.

And what about autonomy? You don't have to speak for all Jews, but like for your own family, how much autonomy do you allow your two kids? Much more than would have been allowed two generations ago.

But I think that's more a factor of society than our internal compasses, because I think our internal compasses want to go back to the circumstances under which we were raised, where there was less autonomy. But it feels very, very out of step with our kids' social cohort. But did you, with your kids, say you should do this for your extracurricular activities, for example? We did, and it didn't work that well. And so I think we kind of gave up. What did you want your kids to do?

Like music? You know, just the standard panoply of things. Plus, it was colored by the fact that in my case, I just did a lot when I was a kid because there was nothing to do where I grew up in the country. So I did a lot of music and a lot of sports and a lot of writing,

a lot of blowing things up and building things and so on. So to me, that was what life was. My kids grew up in a totally different environment in New York City, where there's a social environment that is incredibly variegated and rich. And so a lot of their involvements were more kind of interpersonal involvements, whereas I spent the better part of my first 16 years pretty much alone with either a guitar or a hammer or a typewriter. And did you try to get them to have more of your sort of interests? I did, and they mostly didn't stick. And that was kind of hard for a while. Like, what do you mean my kid doesn't want to have a punk band when they're 13 and so on?

That's respect for autonomy, right? Like if your kid says, you know, I want to major in English, and you think that's a terrible idea, and you let them do it anyway. You know, I think for many parents being warm, like unconditional love, that's intuitive. I think for some parents, being demanding also is relatively intuitive. But I think this idea of autonomy and autonomy support is, it's hard, and I've struggled with it, because it's really, really hard not to feel like you know best. And I think that's the part of authoritative parenting that is just easy to get wrong. But in terms of being likable, I would give a second recommendation, which is to model what you're asking your kids to be.

So, for example, a part of likability is to be very empathic, right? Like to watch for other people's emotions and to be interested in how other people are feeling. I mean, here is another perspective on this, which I was just reading the other day. I got so excited. I literally sent the author of this article an email that was just like nothing more or less than like, I loved your article. Thank you. Her name is Shelly Gable. We don't have to bleep her name like Meredith. No, you don't. So Shelly Gable is a professor of psychology at University of California, Santa Barbara. And this article, it was about responsiveness in parenting, but also any one

on one relationship. So this applies if you have kids, but also applies to Sydney because Sydney's got a husband and also applies to anybody who has a friendship or any other one-on-one relationship. And the idea is that what we're often and maybe even always looking for in a relationship with another person is for them to be responsive. And she says that really means three things. The first is to really see the other person, to kind of understand what the person is feeling or thinking or what they like and what their attitudes are. The second one is to respect them. And that's kind of respect for autonomy. So as a parent, can I respect what my kids actually think about the world, even if it's different from myself? And the third dimension is really like this warm and caring thing. Like I care about you

in this very elemental, profound way. So when I think about parents who want to raise kids who are likable, like popular in the best sense of the word, I think if you do that, honestly, that's most of parenting, right? Be a good role model and try to do these responsive and yet appropriately demanding things. So I kind of glean that Sydney's asking this question, having already made the decision to not have kids. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're thinking about it. Maybe they're thinking, well, what if our kids are nasty kids? our kids are nasty kids. I'm not going to recommend to Sydney whether she should have kids or not. But I can say that I wouldn't let a couple of dinner parties with especially bratty two-year-olds or 15-year-olds dissuade her from having kids because in most instances, the kids will grow out of those stages with the help of parents who are good role models and authoritative. And the upsides of having children are what, again, generally, said the father of two teenagers? Do I need to remind you?

Well, you know, it's interesting. It's so much work. But when I think about my lowest lows and my like sleepless nights it is because of parenting not because of work the things that make me just you know grind my teeth into dust etc so why do we do it there's the obvious which is there's a biological desire for many of us it's so primitive that we can't even put words on it but the other thing is this i have seen you parent and i know how much you love your kids so you you tell me if I'm wrong, but like the greatest joys are also your kids. Just the relief that they came home safe that day and just like funny things they say. And you're like, oh, my gosh, I like you so much. I love you so much. So what do you think? I agree entirely. The biological imperative is so strong that we often don't even recognize it. I think we do it for a million different reasons. There's tradition, there's

love, there's seeing everybody else do it and think that it must make sense. But to me, once you've made the decision, once you have the kids, it really is the world's greatest science experiment. But it's done in a way that most science experiments are not. Like, there is data all over. There are literally 7.3 billion people on Earth. So theoretically, we should know every answer. And yet, instead, we all like to tinker in our workshops. And some people subscribe to best practices. Literally, your profession is to come up with essentially best practices for a certain kind of child rearing and so on. But I think most of us are fumbling in the dark and having a fantastic time while we do it, except for the times when we're having a miserable time. We don't have a control group.

And I think that is why it feels to many parents like more like an art than a science, because you've got one kid, maybe two at most, I don't know, 10 or something like it. But you don't really have the opportunity to try it this way. And then, like, let me try the me was really useful was listening to what teachers and doctors had to say, because they'd seen it a thousand times before. And I'd only seen it once, and I'm very biased. And so a lot of reassurance came from professionals, essentially, who've seen it. So for Sydney, you know, I don't know. I think rabbits are great pets. Dogs are pretty good. Kids are definitely more complicated. Theoretically, more rewarding. Definitely more expensive. I think if you have a pet elephant, it might get up there in terms of cost compared to a child. So as long as you don't have a pet elephant, Sydney, I think you're fine. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure Sydney had originally asked us for advice on whether to procreate or not. I think this was just like, how do I handle my next dinner party with a bunch of bratty kids who come over with their parents? Just in case, though, because I

think more and more people are turning to podcasts for essential advice about how to live your life, don't you think? Yeah, well, hopefully not ours, but sure. Still to come on No Stupid Questions, what do friendship and physical therapy have in common? Hope you think of me as a calf stretch. So I know that you are doing some research on friendship. Yes? That is correct. So here's my question for you.

What's so good about friendship? Well, for starters, having friends is probably the number one predictor of being a happy person. No. It is true. Not having friends being the number one predictor of being unhappy. Wow. Okay. So that immediately makes me want to know if it's really causal. In other words, am I happy because I'm the kind of person who attracts friends? And am I unhappy because I'm the kind of person who doesn't attract friends? Or does having friends feed happiness? So I think most things in life are actually reciprocally causal.

In this case, how do you know that there's any causal direction from having friends towards happiness? Right. I know how you could know. You could take like a thousand really happy people and divide them into two groups of two. Or take away their friends. Exactly. Okay. Yes, that's true. I think you've obviously shown how hard it is. I will say this. The striking correlation is at least suggestive that it's not a bad thing to have friends. And when I

say it's the best predictor, like, for example, it's a better predictor than having money or having a really prestigious job. And you know this how? How good is the research on this? So there's one study, for example, called the Very Happy People Study. And they just surveyed a bunch of people on their happiness on a variety of scales to get like a really precise measure of how happy they felt they were. It's subjective, obviously, because happiness is subjective. And then they just asked them about lots of other things that plausibly could produce happiness. For instance, do you like your work and family and things?

Exactly. Things like that. Achievement. So this finding that friendships are the most associated with happiness, to me as a social scientist, it's like at some point you have to put together the evidence that there is with just common sense. Okay. So let's say that we accept this finding, right? Or maybe we put finding in quotes. You can put in air quotes. But you're right. It does have common sense. So let's say that I decide that having friends is important and valuable. What about symmetry or asymmetry in friendships? In other words, how asymmetrical can a good friendship be? Because I think we've all had experiences where you're the friend who's always the one that's maintaining or reaching out. And then sometimes it's the other way.

Well, first of all, almost none is known scientifically about friendship. And I'm exaggerating a little bit, but a lot of people study marriage and divorce and romantic relationships and intimacy. But actually very few social scientists study platonic friendship, which of course made me want to study it more. So, okay, you asked about reciprocity. My kind of synthesis of what is known is that reciprocity is important for like long-term durability. Asymmetric relationships don't endure for very long. One person basically gets resentful, so they can kind of dissolve. If you just even reflect on your own friendships, it's not that at every given point of time it has to be 50-50. There can be periods of time where like one friend is just needier and then the other person is more

of a giver. But I do think there has to be this give and take because isn't that what a friendship is in a way, right? It's a communal relationship. And once it becomes lopsided in a permanent way, it's no longer like we're of the same piece. Right. So let me ask you this. What about friendships outside of your own status rank? Oh, you mean like if you're friends with the Prince of Wales? Yeah, maybe not that person. But it strikes me that most good friendships that I'm aware of are among people who are within a pretty tight band of what you'd consider socioeconomic status generally. Oh, yes. Okay. One of the predictors of both romantic and platonic relationships is homophily. In other words, that like, likes, likes, so birds

of a feather. My husband actually subscribes to this theory because we met. Oh, I thought you're going to say he subscribes to Homophily Illustrated, and I was going to say, I want that too. Okay, sorry. So we met in Oxford, England, and we were both there on fellowships. But his theory is that because we're both from basically the tri-state area, meaning affectionately like the area around Philadelphia. So I guess that's what, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware?

New York. Oh, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Yeah, it depends on where you are. Tri-state could mean different things depending on which tri-state. There are probably a few of them. Anyway, we had both grown up the same kind of like suburban, lowbrow culture. You know, we remember the same commercial for aluminum siding. And so we both have this kind of cultural heritage, and we gravitated to each other in this totally different place.

But you both went to Ivy League schools. We did. We were sort of like culturally similar. Status wise. Right. You could say you're both from families that were. We're upperly mobile. Right.

All right. Here's a question. We often hear people talk about their spouse or their partner being their quote best friend. Yes. And I'm curious, is that optimal? I am guessing that having a non-romantic, purely platonic best friend and a romantic partner is healthier than just having a romantic partner. I think it serves a different function in life.

Just the odds of it lasting for the rest of your life might be higher. Meaning the odds of the platonic friendship lasting. The platonic one, yeah. Do you know anything about longevity of deep friendships versus longevity of marriage? That's what I want to study. I want to study the outlier friendships. So let me give you an example of an outlier in friendship whom we both know. Sendhil Mullanatham. He's an economist. He's now at the University of Chicago. Sendhil was kind of famously a great friend. And I was thinking about Sendhil in particular

because he had canceled on an engagement that he was supposed to do for me. So he was supposed to come to Philadelphia and give a talk. And his excuse was a very good friend of his was having a baby. Oh, so he played the friend card. Well, who goes to see their friend a month before they have a baby? He had to fly to California from Chicago to see them for a week because he knew that they'd be busy afterwards. But he used his friend credential on another friend to decrease your friendship bond. He knew that I was not that kind of friend. I actually don't think it would be

appropriate or understandable if Sandoval flew to see me if I were having a baby. But you want to be friends with him. I'd love to be friends with him. How's the friendship going? Well, I realized that, like, I don't think I can pay the cost of admission. So essentially, Sendhil said, look, my friends are so important to me. When it was his 40th birthday, for the month preceding his birthday, they had arranged different surprises for him wherever he was. He was in Denver giving a talk, you know, in his hotel room, there would be like this first edition book of something that they had discussed at a dinner party like 12 years before. And these series of surprises culminated in a surprise birthday party. He says to this day,

it may have been the best night of his life. That's what I want to study. I want to study people like Sendhil who have had the same friends. You know, I don't always think it's from childhood. I think oftentimes it just dates back to some other early chapter in your life. But I want to study them. And here's my hypothesis, which is that I think friendship is a lot more like physical therapy than you would think. In other words, there is this kind of time on task and you have to call the person, you have to make the plans to see each other, and it's not quite convenient. You don't really feel like it. It's raining out. You've got a lot of work to do. And all the things that would prevent you from doing like your physical therapy are the same things that would prevent you from investing in friendship. And when I think about my longest lived and deepest

friendships, I can't say that there was immediate chemistry with these people. It's not like, oh, it was like falling in love. And like, I guess I just found the right one. It was more like, these are the friendships where through habit, through circumstance and through diligence, we reciprocally, we mutually invested a lot and called each other, you know, once every week for now over two decades. And those are my closest friends. So perhaps not surprisingly coming from you, you're telling us that grit is useful in friendship formation. It does sound like that. Well, yes, I am. I'm telling you that. Well, I like this topic and it sounds like you have a lot of work to do on it. So I'm going to

let you go. But can I say one thing? I'm glad that we're friends. Thank you, Stephen. I hope you invest in me like you would in physical therapy. I hope you think of me as a calf stretch. No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio and people I mostly admire. This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and now here's a fact check of today's conversations. me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and now here's a fact check of today's conversations. During the conversation about parenthood, Stephen says that there are 7.3 billion people on Earth. But according to the Census Bureau's World Population Clock, he was off by about 400 million.

The Census Bureau estimates that there are nearly 7.7 billion people on the planet, so plenty of data to guide potential parents. But sadly, many children will still pursue a career in podcasting. Sorry, Mom. Later on, Angela says that parents don't really have the opportunity to fully experiment with different child-rearing methods because you have, quote, one kid, maybe two, at most 10 or something. I'm sure that the reigning

Guinness Book of World Records holder would beg to differ. According to the public records from 18th century Russia, a woman outside of Moscow gave birth to a total of 69 children, 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets, a total of 27 births between the years 1725 and 1765. Her husband reportedly had an additional 18 children with his second wife, for a total of 87 kids, 84 of which survived past infancy. That's it for the Fact Check. No Stupid Questions is produced by Freakonomics Radio and Stitcher. Our staff includes Allison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, James Foster, and Corinne Wallace. Thanks also to our intern Emma Terrell for her help with this episode. Our theme song is And

She Was by Talking Heads. Special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chapel Music. If you'd like to listen to the show ad-free, subscribe to Stitcher Premium. You can also follow us on Twitter at Thank you. something that you'd like to learn more about, you can check out Freakonomics.com slash NSQ, where we link to all of the books, studies, and experts that you heard about here today. Thanks for listening. You see how it's all part of the whole, Stephen, little grasshopper? Your brainwashing is working so beautifully on me, I have to say. Yes.