Mister Rogers had a simple set of rules for talking to children (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Mister Rogers had a simple set of rules for talking to children (2018)

theatlantic.com

552 pointsTomte162 comments

Fred Rogers really appreciated the world from a child's perspective. The idea that when you're doing everything for the first time it can be very exciting and also scary. He often talks about the "drama" of everyday life. Imagine going to get a haircut for the first time, sitting in a chair that moves up and down and tilts in a way that no other chair you know does, experiencing all the sounds and sensations of scissors and clippers around your head.

I hope that we all can see the world from a young person's perspective sometimes and realise that we don't need to inject any additional "drama".

I often think about how nice it is to be an adult in that I can assess, address, and manage that drama. As a kid, my god, it was overwhelming. I came out of it with a distinct sense that the world is unsafe, unstable, and unpredictable. I have a hard time shaking those tendencies.

Another great thing about being an adult is that you can provide kids with comfort and strategies to overcome that. It’s sometimes overlooked but such an easy way to enrich life for kids.

Also I find your haircut example funny - I recall my first haircut in a public place being incredibly intimidating and uncomfortable. It’s probably why I went bald before my 20s; my body decided by age 6 or so that it didn’t want hair anymore.

> As a kid, my god, it was overwhelming.

As an adult... Still pretty overwhelming sometimes!

I recently witnessed a boy's first time at the hairdresser while waiting for my turn. Both his parents came with him. Long before they were called to the chair, his parents already discussed how they were going to handle this situation. (The boy likely didn't understand the details but could feel that something was up.)

When it was his turn, they immediately started telling him not to be afraid and that it wasn't going to hurt. He sat on his dad's lap, his dad holding him tight, while his mom desperately tried to deflect his attention by waving a teddy bear in front of him and non-stop talking to him. Predictably, the boy was completely terrified and cried the whole time. I'm sure it will be a long time before he can get a haircut without being scared.

It was such a missed opportunity because there are indeed so many interesting things going on at the hairdresser. I've seen other children almost fall asleep on the chair because it was all so relaxing to them. It's too bad they chose to focus on all the scary parts of the experience.

children are really different from one another (sometimes even siblings, born to the same parents only a year or 2 apart). What works for one child may not for another, it may be that they didn't handle it best but could also be that it's just a nervous child who has a hard time with such things while the child you saw falling asleep is a calm one that handles these situations better.

If you repeatedly tell someone it will not hurt, they shouldn’t be scared, project your anxiety onto them, hold them tightly (restraining them), it will not relax the person. All that is sensed by the person is that something terrible, scary and painful is going to happen. Of course the child starts to cry.

My girlfriend tells me similar stories of when small children are the first time at their dentist office and their parents behave the same as described in the parent comment. The parents are even informed on how to behave but some still can’t stop projecting their fear onto the children with their words and behavior.

I understand, and as I wrote above that may actually be the case (or part of the case) described above, but there could also be a background we're unaware of (the children's personality).

As a father of 2 little children I can tell you you're constantly being judged by people around you for for not doing good enough a job parenting - especially by people who aren't parents themselves but think they'd be much better at it. In these situations there's often a lot of background information the casual observer simply has no way of knowing.

Just saying we should maybe give the parents in the anecdote above a bit more benefit of the doubt before judging how wrong they handled the situation.

You're definitely right in that children are very different from another. In my experience, however, fear almost always comes from a previous bad experience or it transfers from other people. I've done the "first time at the hairdresser" with both of my children and they still love going there, ten years later. Back then, we took our time looking at all the tools and watching other people's hair being cut. With the permission of the hairdresser, I let them play a bit with the revolving chair. No talk about how it might hurt or anything.

In the story above, the only explanation I can think of is that the boy already had a previous bad experience with a hairdresser. (Didn't look like it but I can't be sure.) Even then, I'm not sure this was the best way to handle it.

>In my experience, however, fear almost always comes from a previous bad experience or it transfers from other people.

children with autism often react badly to hairdressers. There can be all sorts of reasons for some behavioral pattern.

If they can cope with / get used to the intense new sensory input, I imagine the same tricks would work (point out interesting things, make sure they understand what's going on so they know what to expect (but without making it an ominous future event), etc). That might require making the hairdressers' quieter or less crowded, though. (Timing your first time well is probably important; I'd aim for somebody else to watch first, but not large crowds, but it depends on the child.)

> In my experience, however, fear almost always comes from a previous bad experience or it transfers from other people.

One day, my nine-year-old child spontaneously developed acute anxiety of car rides. She had ridden in cars daily for years prior to that. Long road trips, everything no problem. And then, out of nowhere, it was a source of acute—we're talking screaming and crying meltdown—terror. There wasn't a single negative car experience that led to it.

Emotions are complex and kids are highly variable. I'm glad you got lucky with your kids and haircuts (mind don't mind them either), but not every emotional experience with kids has a simple narrative explanation.

I was at a parent's evening last night. One of the other parents had to mention that Her Daughter had, in her terms, "black-outs" during tests. A lot of the other things she mentioned hinted at her being a helicopter parent, so I'm not surprised her daughter has stress related issues with tests.

For a lot of things, you just need to chill out and trivialize things. Kids will copy their parents' emotional responses, so if you worry about exams, they will. If you worry about them being afraid of hairdressers or dentists, they will be. Self-fulfilling prophecies and self-reinforcing.

I don't quite remember where I heard this and whether or not it was a joke, but a skydiving instructor told this story where his students were supposed to land on a plain empty field. But there was one tree somewhere on this field. And whenever he cautioned his students not to land on that tree, invariably, at least one student would manage to land exactly on it. When he didn't mention it, it wouldn't happen.

With children, I find it's almost always a better strategy to focus on the positive sides of an experience. Of course, it's more difficult when they're already afraid of something (maybe through their friends, a previous experience, or the parents themselves). But there are lots of blank slates and it's one of the great parts of being a parent to let them write something positive on it instead of tainting it with fear.

I heard something similar but in relations to soccer players and the goalie when taking a penalty shot: "do not hit the goalie!"

The point made was that it's impossible to not-do something, you can only do.

So when told "do not do X", the "not" disappears and it effectively translates into "do X". And so the soccer player being told not to hit the goalie ends up doing just that.

The moral of the story was to focus on what you should do, rather on what you should not do.

This. The subconcious/animal doesn't get negation, we need to translate and try to do it with our conciousness/neocortex, which is pretty weak in comparison. Wasn't there a term like ego depletion? To many Nos over a day leaving no self discipline left at the end of the day? Same goes for should/should not, but maybe worse, if you don't/do do it (which you probably will) you feel bad afterwards.

Telling what to focus on works with kids, drunks and adults.

Sounds kind of like the advice given to new drivers: look where you want to go, not at oncoming traffic. If you fixate on something, you’ll tend towards it.

Can't remember where i read this (so certainly don't take this as an absolute truth), but all movement tend to strongly follow line of sight. If you drive and look intently at an obstacle to make sure you'll avoid it... chances are you'll hit it. Skiers hitting easy-to-miss trees are frequent.

My personal theory is that if you intently focus on something to make sure you avoid it (physically or psychologically), you're naturally aiming for a near-hit: you're trying to _closely_ avoid the thing rather than missing it by a mile when not even paying attention to it

This was something that they talked about on the show Canada's Worst Driver. One of the keys to avoiding hitting obstacles on the road was to look where you want to go, not at the obstacle.

Rings true to me. Nothing more annoying when playing golf for example than someone telling you to watch out for the ditch on the right just before you hit your teeshot!

This is one of the key things I remember from when I was first learning to drive: Don't actually think about turning the steering wheel; just look to where you want to go and let the steering happen.

I also remember being told to look ahead a few hundred feet, not at the road directly in front of you. This is because you will naturally turn in a smooth arc, instead of constantly adjusting your steering every second while hunting all over the road.

It's like learning to hit a baseball (at a little league level). You don't try to think about where you should swing. You just look at the ball and swing. Your mind unconsciously does the math for you.

That doesn't really work when the pitchers are throwing fast since you have to predict where to swing. But it really works for early levels of the game.

As for movement following line of site, I've felt that. I took an instructional (dual) hang glider ride and at one point the instructor told me to look right cause we were going to enter a right hand turn. And then told me to look straight now that we were going to level out.

And once it was done, he was like "great, good job". Turns out he had literally been hands off the whole time. What I had thought had been me just seeing where he was sending us, actually corresponded to my own movements making it happen.

This is often called "target fixation". The natural inclination is to head towards where you are looking - this can cause a fear driven feedback loop driving you right into an obstacle.

Supposedly, Adam and Eve were told they were free to do anything except one thing, we know what they ended up doing...

When learning to ride a motorcycle they taught us about target fixation [1]: looking at an object in the road and then hitting it even though you're trying to avoid it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation

I find something similar happens when mowing the lawn. When I try to mow in straight lines by pushing next to the previous row, I end up with wavy shapes. But when I fixate on a distant reference point beyond the lawn (like a rock or weed sticking up above the grass) and just walk staring at it, I end up with perfectly straight lines. It's uncanny.

This is also a trick for drawing surprisingly straight lines on paper. If you start at a point and watch where you're drawing, you'll end up with a terrible line. If, however, you start at a point, focus on your target, and move the pencil towards the target, the result is surprisingly good. Also works for circles.

It's especially a problem with motorcycles because many of your natural fear based reactions are exactly wrong for the situation.

Example: you come into a corner a little fast, see you are going a bit wide, fixate on the ditch/edge of road, get afraid and hit the brakes - which stands the bike up and drives you wide; sometimes right off the road.

The right response here is to look away from the ditch to the line you want on the other side of the lane and lean into it more. Easier said than done if you are afraid or anxious.

The effect you describe in your example is called target fixation.

> With children, I find it's almost always a better strategy to focus on the positive sides of an experience

I spent my entire childhood trying to make this clear to my parents, but I never succeeded. For a lot of people I think this is just very difficult, if not impossible.

> With children, I find it's almost always a better strategy to focus on the positive sides of an experience.

Which, according to the article, was the second step of Fred Rogers' rewriting process.

> With children, I find it's almost always a better strategy to focus on the positive sides of an experience.

I find it's a lot more complex than that. I have had that backfire where if I focus too much on the positive aspects, my kid doesn't feel that their fears are heard and understood.

Kids and emotions are complex and highly variable. There's rarely simple solutions. You kinda just have to throw your whole brain and heart at the problem and navigate it as best as you can.

So true. And not just kids, adults also can copy emotions of other people, usually of group leaders, or of those who we like. What's important is that this is happening unconsciously.

I find this incredibly mean and short-sighted. Not to mention "correlation-not-causation" etc.

Don't be that person who suggests a child developed autism because their parent was overprotective.

> They immediately started telling him not to be afraid and that it wasn't going to hurt.

Not being a parent but I can already see that they were setting themselves for a fail.

Framing!

I remember an advice I heard if you kids fall/hit themselves, laugh with them and ask them if they are ok, kiss the bobo etc. But dont act like they got hit by the car , they will cry as kids can read feeling and will adjust their reaction to your reaction.

Framing is very important when talking to anyone really, saying just 'the right' things might even have the opposite effect.

I am a parent, and honestly you just have to read the individual kid. Just like people of any age, kids react to things in their own ways. Some kids will get pissed if you downplay their getting hurt, others will react with horror if you play it up, some will just deal with it by themselves regardless of how you act. The best way to parent isn't to follow some preset rules, but to try to understand your child for who they are. And then be easy on yourself, because whatever you do, many times it'll be not quite right anyway!

The older I get and the more I observe children from an adult lens the more I see how much personality is packed into even very young people. You can get different reactions out of the same person but you have to tailor your approach for each one, and I think it must be the same with parenting children.

Has your view on nature versus nurture shifted since having kids? I've heard some people start to shift very heavily towards viewing people's personalities as part of their nature from birth after raising children of their own.

As a parent myself: that sort of framework tends to absolve parents from their responsibilities, so of course it appeals. "Nothing I could do about it, guv, he was always like that!" It can also be used to reinforce the sense of "talent" or "destiny" they want to (often selfishly) imbue in their spawn.

I've actually gone all the way to the other side. I see in my kids all the issues they've inherited from me and their mother, plus all the extra they get from a different environment from the ones we grew up in. I see where they diverge in attitudes, of course, but that has very clearly a lot to do with firstborn vs sibling and (increasingly, with age) their sex, rather than anything incredibly unique or innate.

> the more I see how much personality is packed into even very young people.

Before I had kids, I always assumed that babies were like undifferentiated blank slates and that they grew unique personalities over time and through experiences.

If anything, it's the exact opposite. My kids and the kids of my friends pop out of the womb with insanely huge personality variation. You don't see it at first because babies have so few visible outputs. But once they hit toddler age where they can walk and talk and do stuff, you realize each one is a complete batshit crazy wildcard.

It's only through years of socialization that they learn to mold their inner oddball into something stable and functional enough to participate in society.

This. Often times if you see a little kid fall, you’ll see them look around in bewilderment. Then if they see a horrified scared parent rushing towards them, start crying. Alternatively, if they see a smiling laughing one maybe whine a little then start laughing too.

I was always the type of kid that hid any kind of injury or pain out of fear that my parents would get worried or mad. Still am that way to this day.

> Not being a parent but I can already see that they were setting themselves for a fail.

Yeah... have some kids and then we'll see how confident you are. Young kids especially are irrational balls of emotion. Sometimes there is no winning move, but the hair needs to be cut.

I empathize. "Hey I bet that smarts! It'll go away in a second. Feeling better? Lets look at the scrape, see if we need to put a bandaid on it." My little nephew by that time is impatient to go back and play.

I was mostly cold neutral in these situations, as if it was something normal. I usually casually chatted with the hairdresser (or MD, or whoever was about to do harm to my kids :)) and I could se that the child was closely observing.

If I behaved like it was normal and not a big deal, they would usually relax and there was no fuss.

It still happens, 14 and 17 years on. Of course they are independent, proud, not-like-their-parents and whatnot, but in new situations they like to glance at how we are handling the situation :)

I would also (with the young version of the kids) do something horrible, Calvin and Hobbes style - getting super exited by something, they would get excited as well, the excitement is at the top, tension is unbearable and then the big thing is that we are going to bed. I did that twice I think, I am ashamed of myself.

> I would also (with the young version of the kids) do something horrible, Calvin and Hobbes style - getting super exited by something, they would get excited as well, the excitement is at the top, tension is unbearable and then the big thing is that we are going to bed. I did that twice I think, I am ashamed of myself.

Not sure if you’re joking or not, but I do that all the time with my son to make the mundane exciting again and frame things in a new way. It’s not a let down if you can still deliver by making the ordinary thing interesting somehow.

I found the strip I had in mind :) https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/htipjs/oh_...

> I was mostly cold neutral in these situations, as if it was something normal. I usually casually chatted with the hairdresser (or MD, or whoever was about to do harm to my kids :)) and I could se that the child was closely observing.

> If I behaved like it was normal and not a big deal, they would usually relax and there was no fuss.

Humans are social animals, and the young ones learn their attitude about new situations from the leader of their pack. You can see the same behavior with dogs: meeting a new person, they'll often mirror the attitude their owner has to the new person (obviously with less fidelity than children).

> When it was his turn, they immediately started telling him not to be afraid and that it wasn't going to hurt. He sat on his dad's lap, his dad holding him tight, while his mom desperately tried to deflect his attention by waving a teddy bear in front of him and non-stop talking to him.

"Here's a glass of water. It's definitely not poison and it won't kill you. It's not going to burn your throat when you drink it. Now let me fixate you in case you start violently thrashing around. Just drink the water and think of something else. We'll get through this together, okay?"

I think anyone would freak out at this point, even if it really is just water.

"But I told you it was just water!"

When I was a child a hairdresser cut a bit of my ear. Obviously I cried at the moment, it hurt. I may have been anxious about going to get a haircut for a couple of times afterwards. But then we found another hairdresser that was absolutely marvelous with kids, and never had any issue afterwards.

It's just about how the situations are handled. The given story being a very very poor example, despite the parents having good intentions.

Something in defense of the parents: they were there for their kid, both of them. And they both wanted to protect him and make sure he had a good experience. Many kids don’t even have something close to that.

Their attempt might have failed, but not for lack of good intentions and putting in the effort.

I think most parents can relate to the fact that parenting is basically being thrown in front of the wolves, and then making every mistake you can imagine in front of everyone to see. All the while having to meet societies expectations and having to endure its judgement.

It’s not easy, and we should not be harsh on anyone who makes an effort, gives it an honest shot and tries to learn from their mistakes.

Hear, and distracting children works beautifully as any parent ought to know. Not always, of course.

Agreed. Being a parent means deflect, defend and distract for 23 hours a day…

I like to think of parenting as a never-ending improv performance where the audience will judge you harshly for every mistake and one of your fellow actors is actively trying to sabotage every scene.

forwarding this comment to my friends due in 2 months

/sarcasm

Depending on the age and temperament of the child there was probably no winning move.

Some kids are terrified of loud noises. Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, whatever, will immediately set off tears and wailing. Even if they're four houses away. Other kids shrug it off like it's nothing.

Same with haircuts. My first kid handled the haircuts just fine at 2 years old. No big deal, hey I get to watch videos. Second kid was inconsolable the first four times we went - just had to get used to it.

Maybe you also witnessed the parents first time taking a child for their first haircut.

Parenting is pretty easy, until you're a parent.

The best parents are those without kids.

Every kid is so different that it really isn't fair to judge parenting techniques from a short interaction like that. Maybe they're doing it wrong, but at least consider the possibility that they know their kid better than you.

As a father of a toddler, kids will always cry and be terrified for any thing they try for the first time (i.e. at the hairdressers). You can't always reason with the kids who don't understand anything. Kids don't look at experiences as "interesting things going on". And every kid is different so don't compare kids as if they are the same.

The hair cutting experience is just scary no matter how you package the visit or the setting. Strangers with scissors and noisy devices and you did nothing wrong to be subjected to loosing your hair, even if you did, still it's your hair to keep, your head to protect. And who's the hair dresser anyway?

With kids there's no universal solution to spare the _parents_ some drama. At some age some kids want to be the boss, they'd rather be the hair dresser, cut the hair, use the tools to learn the experience. Others would just agree to watch how it's done to others then play it out, before agreeing to have it cut. Either way, some patience with a slow pace of kid's acceptance helps them figure out the why and find trust in it.

With the pandemic lockdown, I surprisingly got my "haircut" "done" by our budding home professional, with water spray bottle being the only real tool, but the plastic tools had the magic effect on my appearance in hands of this preschooler.

Next!

Some very young children just absolutely do not want to be messed with. Even brushing their hair with a soft brush can be a major struggle no matter how clever you might be at distracting, comforting, or convincing.

If you have one of these children, then you know what’s coming as soon as the hairdresser touches their hair and there isn’t much you can do about it. It’s quite reasonable to decide it’s better to let the child know what’s about to happen rather than let them be surprised. A haircut takes time. It’s not like a shot that’s over in an instant. Holding them might be the only way to prevent them from swatting the scissors away and jerking their head in an unsafe manner.

After a few unsuccessful haircut attempts, you’ll likely find yourself considering a child-bun or just allowing their vision to be impaired until they are old enough to understand better.

Just got my daughter's first haircut a couple weeks ago. All smiles. I agree that the solution is to act like it isn't a big deal, kids pick up on your anxiety and are rightfully concerned. "If my big brave dad is scared, this must be really scary!"

I do the same for global warming, nuclear war and covid. What is a three year old going to do about those things, why burden them with concern they can't act upon?

Why would you blame the parents? Every kid is unique and has their own fears and perceptions of the world... Parenting isn't a one way interaction...

I've been on both ends of the child thinking that the haircut is completely fine and requires no advance notice, and a month later the same child being terrified and needing to be held down.

Honestly, with an adult you would be right, but kids are just a crapshoot.

I never think about the anxiety of kids but I love to guide their steps by spreading a bit of funny information here and there and giving slight hints or challenges to make them try safely, while nurturing their own curiosity.

I want to push back on this idea that Rogers "saw the world from a child's perspective." The article made the point that it was a product of hard, hard work, and engagement with the best scientific minds of the generation.

If he had just left it up to intuition, we wouldn't be celebrating his show as much as we do. We don't and can't "see the world from a child's perspective".

The show’s final cuts reflected many similarly exacting interventions. Once, Rogers provided new lyrics for the “Tomorrow” song that ended each show, to ensure that children watching on Friday wouldn’t expect a show on Saturday, when the show didn’t air. And Rogers’s secretary, Elaine Lynch, remembered how, when one script referred to putting a pet “to sleep,” he excised it for fear that children would be worried about the idea of falling asleep themselves.

Rogers was extraordinarily good at imagining where children’s minds might go.

The more I learn about him, the more I feel he was underappreciated in his time.

As someone who was a child that grew up watching him, I can assure you that he was extremely appreciated by his target audience.

Land of Make Believe crew checking in!!

Modern Daniel Tiger is a good message and all, but blatant. Fred had that subtlety that let you still find your path to your personal truth, like the best dad.

Newly minted granddad here. I’ve spent a couple hours with the kiddos playing and Daniel Tiger in the background. They watch sometimes. I agree with your sentiment. It seems nice and all, but somethings just meh about it compared to the old stuff.

I’m increasingly concerned about a world that has doers and deciders. Fred Rogers was able to be both. He had the skills to do. But he also had a lot of influence and was able to decide. So often anymore, there are a group of creative doers who are placed under the thumb of people less able to do who have promoted themselves as a whole to take care of the deciding, so that the doers, uh, er, uh, have more time to do.

Daniel Tiger feels like a well meaning kids show created in just such an environment.

In defense of Daniel Tiger, even if it can’t fully compete with Fred Rogers while trying to follow in his footsteps, it at least explores childhood feelings in a slow, deliberate & understandable way which is more than I can say for most shows for kids. Too much frenzied action in the realm of kids’ entertainment and Fred Rogers was complaining about that in testimony to Congress long before I was born!

We found in Bluey a lot of what we were looking for and expected in Daniel Tiger.

Especially the "talking to kids in a helpful way" aspect.

They're obviously not cut from the same template or are even necessarily trying to be the same thing.

The kids enjoy both, and both are great shows, but affecting learned/emulated behavior (for both the kids and us with better parenting) is much more apparent with Bluey.

Sesame Street took a similar tack when Mr. Hooper died [1].

I was a rather literal child and was often frustrated by adults' use of such euphemisms for death ("in a better place", "passed on", "asleep forever", etc.) as I considered it deceitful and patronizing. It's nice to know that there are children's shows that deal with such an uncomfortable fact of existence with plain language and dignity.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjFbz6vGU8

Gotta NSFW tag this or something. Hit with these first grade memories.

Those lines

> "Big bird, it has to be this way--because."

>> "Because?"

> "Just... because"

Goodness those hit me hard.

Because natural selection doesn't optimize for longevity.

What you're saying is true, and it can be helpful to put things into logical terms like that.

But it's a messed up thing when you're a kid. You're thrust into the world, and some people around you make everything alright. Then one of those people leave, forever. As I'm sure many others can attest to, even as an adult, that frustration doesn't go away. I accept that it can be explained as deterioration of the cells, or maybe general entropy, but there's an emotional aspect to it nevertheless.

Somehow, it's comforting for me to remember that it happens "just because."

Humans are extraordinarily longevous. Natural selection doesn't optimize for immortality.

There are biologically immortal animals on earth, so it doesn't exactly optimize against it either.

Which begs the questions "why not?" and "why does natural selection get to say how long we live?".

My mother likes to tell the story of the first time I encountered a dead mouse:

"Why isn't he moving?"

--"Well, he's in the sky." (One way we say "in heaven" in my native language.)

"But he's right there."

--"Well, his soul is in the sky."

"..."

--"..."

"And why isn't his tail in the sky?"

Pardon my pushback, but wouldn't it be easier to just answer: the mouse has died. I know that's not religious and everyone has their own views on the soul, but: do we need to ease feelings about a dead mouse? I see the death of wild animals as good opportunities to teach children, so they're more prepared for the death of humans they know or their pets.

I think that's the point that GP is making -- they were contrasting a straightforward approach to their mother's more euphemistic explanation, which was unsatisfying to them as a child.

Like almost everything in parenting, it’s more complicated than you would first think. My toddler knows our elderly dog went to the doctor and died because she was sick. But when he asks ‘why’ I have to clarify that: she was sick but not the same way he gets a cold; that the doctor tries to make people feel better too; that she’s not dead in the way replaceable batteries die; and that her grandparents won’t die when they get a cold even though they also get sick.

I avoided the rookie mistake of telling him that the dog went ‘to sleep’ (because then he might worry that he’ll die if he goes to sleep too). But there were a dozen other considerations that I also had to make, up to the point of changing our wording when batteries or electronics ‘die’ from now on.

Do dogs not die in the way batteries do though? Surely we love dogs more than batteries, but both have a finite lifespan.

that's the standard advice when handling a pet's death. Don't try to sugarcoat it.

My mother took me to meet him at a book signing when I was very young. She was a kindergarten teacher who studied early childhood development. I got to speak to him briefly, and thought it was neat.

Later in life I asked her about it, and she admitted that she only brought me because she knew how much I enjoyed the show, and that she personally found his manner of speaking (on the show) to be a bit grating. However, she said that upon meeting him in the flesh, all her prejudices immediately dissipated, and she could immediately tell that he was one of the most wholesome, honest, charming people she'd ever met.

I haven't watched the semi-recent film about his life because I'm a big softie and I'm sure I'd bawl, but I do know that he was a very good man who will be missed for a long time.

I can attest that the film, despite its flaws, had me on the verge of tears much of the time.

Imagining someone whose sole goal is to encourage positive development hits me hard, for some reason. He surely had his demons like any human, but he seemed like a fellow that was intent on lifting the rest of us up.

> I haven't watched the semi-recent film about his life because I'm a big softie and I'm sure I'd bawl,

From the article: "Rogers once halted taping of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never suggest to children that they not cry."

I watched that film on a flight a couple of years ago, and cried, alone with my headphones, on a crowded airplane.

> Rephrase any element that suggests certainty

So underrated. Certainty brings sad situation when reality doesn't match the words of a trusted person.

That's probably one of the reason Mr Rogers feels so honest and reliable: it's the reverse of the salesman.

Agreed. Part of gaining the trust of another person is being honest about uncertainty.

He subtly emphasized that authority figures are your best bet for advice, but they still don't know everything. It's a nice gentle introduction to what can be more bluntly phrased as "in the end, you will need to use your best judgement."

There should be more of that, but a lot of people are afraid of telling - or hearing - certain phrases.

I do believe this is the case even more in software development and IT, because we know what we don't know, we know there's a lot of uncertainties, and we have trouble being certain about things. "When can you finish this?" "Well it depends..."

Sadly many, dare I say, most adults, have an immense thirst for certainty.

Not to get too gushy, but as I grow older I often find myself feeling more like a child again--in that the world is not a controlled place, and none of us know why we're here, and we are all kind of trying our best to make a nice time of it. There's really no instruction manual for dealing with all the curveballs and caveats.

Mr. Rogers always gets me emotional, because his messaging strikes me as addressing that exact issue. It's scary being a new human, but in another light, it can also be wonderful. He acknowledges the former, but highlights the latter.

I know this was kind of a stuffy statement, but darnnit if I don't appreciate the hard work that man did :-)

This reminds me of a story I heard about how a child was scared to go to school because her teacher kept on talking about what they would do "in the meantime". It turns out she was afraid there was a "mean time" coming up. (Heard on "A way with words")

I had something similar happen when I went to kindergarden. (Yes, I know that's not how it's spelled. Bear with me.)

It wasn't scary, just disappointing. I had figured out that "kinder" meant "kids", and I thought they would have a garden for us kids to play in.

When I got there, it was just a classroom. There wasn't a garden in sight!

But I made up for the disappointment by royally pranking my class. I had been playing around with electrical components, and I had a big fat electrolytic capacitor. Low voltage, but plenty of capacity. It may have been one farad.

I charged it up at home to around three volts, and brought the capacitor and a screwdriver to Show and Tell.

I explained what a capacitor was and how electricity could kill you, and then I "accidentally" grabbed the two terminals, one in each hand. I twitched and convulsed like I was getting electrocuted!

Somehow I managed to let go of the terminals! Then I took the screwdriver and shorted the terminals, with a spark and a loud bang.

I told the other kids, "That was a close call! But it's safe now. I discharged it. Who wants to try it next?"

"garten" means garden in German. A literal translation is "Childrens' Garden". You weren't wrong.

It's where you bring the children to grow.

At Caltech, the theory was that freshmen needed to be watered for them to grow. So they'd get stuffed in the shower often :-)

Great story. :)

I feel sad that your kindergarten didn't have a garden. Almost kindergartens in my country have one, or at least a playground, and the kids usually spend half their day if not more out there.

In Israel as well. In Hebrew kindergarten are called Gan (which literally translates to garden) and always have an outdoors playground

In Croatian the word is vrtić, which means little garden.

I spent long time confused in elementary school because every day they would mention this missile, and I thought the principal kept a missile in his office for some reason. Eventually I realized they were referring to "dismissal" at the end of the day.

There's a whole website dedicated to collecting anecdotes like this:

https://www.iusedtobelieve.com/

Browsing it can be a great reminder of how literal-minded children can be.

Not American so unfamiliar with this excellent man, but his careful attention to language is brilliant and seems very ahead of its time. When I was small there was a strict teacher at primary school with a harsh grating voice whom I was very afraid of; my mum tried to help by reassuring me that this lady's "bark was worse than her bite". Of course I had never heard this idiom before so in my mind she transformed into a snarling dog, which naturally made my anxiety a million times worse. I bet Fred Rogers would have caught that faux pas and edited it out!

The Esquire article on Mr. Rogers, "Can you say Hero?"[1] is one of the best things I've ever read on the internet, and would highly recommend everyone to read.

1: (Esquire page is sign-in only, but I found a mirror) http://www.thedqtimes.com/pages/castpages/other/fredrogersca...

Aside: I find it very annoying when people talk to children in a patronizing way as if they're stupid. Children can certainly see things different but they're not stupid. When I was a scout leader I generally talked to children as if they were adults – although I did take care to phrase things carefully, although not going as far as Mr. Rogers – and this works quite well.

As a European I never grew up with Mister Rogers, but his testimony to the Senate Subcommittee on Communications is very impressive to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA

Thanks for that. It shows how a simple passionate speech, can bring about positive change. I also grew up without Mr. Rogers, but your link led me down a rabbit hole, and I recommend this speech, when he was older, especially the last half, for students young and old; together with a special version of: "It's you I like." https://youtu.be/907yEkALaAY

wow thanks for sharing the speech. Great speech. I had to learn after college to appreciate who I was and stop trying to "do sensational stuff" to get people to like me.

I used to be nervous about the drain in the bathtub. But I had a Mister Rogers record, and of course I knew of him from TV. On the record was "You Can Never Go Down The Drain". When I heard that song my anxiety subsided.

It's interesting seeing how many people loved Mr Rogers as a kid.

To offer a contrasting experience...

As far back as I can remember, I hated Mr Rogers. And in general, I did not enjoy it when adults spoke differently to me than they spoke to each other.

To this day, statements like

> Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

strike me as incredibly weird, almost like a verbal version of the uncanny vally.

Kids can tell when they aren't being given straight answers.

Kids may not understand that they're doing "The 5 Whys", and//or that doing so may be annoying for the umpteenth time.

But non-answers like "because" as the be-all & end-all has an expiration date. That bill comes due for somebody. If that somebody ends up being your grown-up kid when it's time to pay, I wonder how much sympathy I'll have and for whom.

>I did not enjoy it when adults spoke differently to me than they spoke to each other.

Seeing the Mr Rogers documentary that came out a few years ago, I realized that he basically spoke the same with everyone.

OK, that's fair! He spoke very unlike the adults and kids around me, though. :-)

> > Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

> strike me as incredibly weird, almost like a verbal version of the uncanny vally.

I don't think that you have to talk to kids that you know like this, but it was important on the TV show that they not make assumptions (like that the child knows their parents) because they are broadcasting it to a huge number of kids with different life circumstances.

This show was so much better than what I see parents letting their kids watch today, such as this seemingly AI-generated spam. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nursery+rhyme+c... I wonder how this difference will affect the next generation.

I was a little kid in the 70s, and it would be hard to overstate what a big deal Mister Rogers was to kids between the ages of about 4 to 8. I had a relatively happy childhood, and even I practically thought of him as an additional parent. His goodbye message to the kids who grew up with him is touching: https://youtu.be/kFVPkn37iFM

Having worked with linguists on an ads eval platform (human eval), I can definitely appreciate what they've put into formulating questions/answers/documents/etc, such that these do not sound ambiguous, and not only that.

One life-skill you can master is being able to switch up your language depending on who you're talking to. I talk to my son differently than I do my best friend (obviously). We even have an Internet slang term for this: ELI5[0]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/

We also have a meat-space academic term for it: code switching.

Another simple set of rules for talking to children is keeping fixed vs growth mindset approaches in mind

Edit: this was a positive intentioned comment. Not sure why the downvotes

The studies supporting the usefulness of a 'growth mindset' have been failing to replicate, and it's unclear how useful the concept actually is.

My mom always told me I had no talent for math, and that I shouldn't invest energy into things that don't come effortlessly the first time I try them.

It might sound silly, but it took me until my late 20s to realize that I can actually learn hard things by just practicing them a lot.

One of the things that encouraged me to start relearning math was hearing about the growth mindset and reading some books about it.

For me, it works (on myself and for kids) with using different ways to praise, for example- “you’re so smart” vs “you really thought of creative solutions to that problem”

These rules are even more applicable when talking to adults who can't be treated like adults.

The more I learn about him the more sad I am that I never watched his show as a child.

Does anyone else find this beyond silly? How did we survive, grow and build the world without these sacred rules

The rules aren’t “how to talk to children” they’re for the show’s dialogue.

Mr Rogers needs to be more careful than regular people in real life. He’s talking to thousands of children at once and can’t read the room or clarify things for them, but doesn’t want to be misunderstood. Also, he’s well aware that every word he says is being recorded to be scrutinized for ages to come.

Oh. Thanks for clarifying.

So we are doing a transformation from: It is dangerous to play in the street.

To: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

In all honesty going so verbose appending additional context etc. Let's consider this function should also take a parameter of age. I would be annoyed as 10 year old if people talked to me like that - it is super condescending. It might work for a 3 year old. I generally think kids appreciate treating them like small adults and indulge in discussion.

Mr Rogers never sounded condescending to me. I think it helps that he really owned it. I’d say he came off as a little boring but nice and caring.

10 year olds were not the target audience. I think I stopped watching the show after I turned 7.

Of course, the next step after Step 9 would be "Obey".

Early seasons of Sesame Street on DVD now come with warnings that they should not be viewed by children. Here's Sesame Street, S01E01.[1] There are kids outside doing things without adult supervision!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9NUiHCr9Cs

> Early seasons of Sesame Street on DVD now come with warnings that they should not be viewed by children

Do you have a video or screenshot of the warning?

"These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” Why? Cookie Monster carries a pipe in one recurring parody—and then eats it. Oscar the Grouch is too grouchy and mean. And in the first episode, a grown man—Gordon—asks a little girl to come home with him for milk and cookies… and she does! [1]

[1] https://consumerist.com/2007/11/19/early-sesame-street-dvds-...

So it's got nothing to do with kids being outside unsupervised, but not wanting to encourage kids to stick random objects in their mouth or follow strangers home. As someone who went to the hospital as a child after sticking a pipe in their mouth, those seem like fair warnings.

Translation of "pipe", into European? Intrigued!

I assume Europeans call it pipe as well, a section of a cylindrical tube generally used to transport things like water. In my case, it was the plastic pipes of some toy my sister and I were using to pretend we were snorkeling, cut the roof of my mouth requiring stitches.

>>>> Cookie Monster carries a pipe in one recurring parody—and then eats it.

>> Translation of "pipe", into European? Intrigued!

> I assume Europeans call it pipe as well, a section of a cylindrical tube generally used to transport things like water.

In the context of the warning, I think it was talking specifically about a tobacco pipe (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_pipe), not a generic pipe used for liquid transport.

So it seems more of an issue of not wanting to model certain behaviors for young children that are now considered dangerous.

You're probably right. The idea that he would hold a tobacco pipe was so bizarre to me I assumed it was a regular pipe and they just didn't want even the possible miscommunication to be displayed.

> The idea that he would hold a tobacco pipe was so bizarre to me I assumed it was a regular pipe

I think the bit started as a spoof of a character that I assume held a pipe. It doesn't seem too bizarre to me, so they were being true to that. Holding a regular pipe would have been a non sequitur. When I grew up, smoking was definitely presented as bad, but I still got licorice tobacco pipes at a candy store on a couple occasions (e.g. https://economycandy.com/product/red-licorice-pipe/). It seems like now they don't want kids to even know what smoking is.

Are you referring to this warning?

“This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures,” the warning reads. “These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversations to create a more inclusive future together.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/entertainment-a...

That's about the Muppets Show, not Sesame Street.

Ah gotcha, I didn't realize they were different shows. Did a little more digging, and here's the warning on Sesame Street: "These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grownups and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child"

It sounds like it's about things that are no longer considered safe for kids, compared to the 60s:

>"We wouldn't have children on the set riding without a bicycle helmet," Rollins Westin says.

> And what's that little girl doing with that man?

> "In the very first episode, Gordon takes a little girl's hand who he's just met on the street, befriends her and takes her into his home to give her ice cream," Rollins Westin said. "That's something we wouldn't do on the show today."

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sesame-street-for-adults-only/

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