A Clinical Psychologist Is Begging Parents and Grandparents To Find the ‘Golden Snitch' Around Kids
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When most people hear "Golden Snitch," they likely immediately think about the small ball used in Quidditch, the fictional sport from Harry Potter. During these games, the "Seeker" from each team is trying to locate and catch the Snitch while the rest of the players attempt to score and block goals. It's a chaotic and lively setting in the books and movies—much like a household with young kids.
It's fitting, then, that Stanford professor and Duke-trained psychologist Dr. Caroline Fleck, author of Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life, swears by a certain parenting tool that involves moms and dads seeking their own "Golden Snitch" around their kids.
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The 'Golden Snitch' Parenting Tool, According to a Clinical Psychologist
"The 'Golden Snitch' refers to an effective response in a child that would otherwise get overshadowed by more problematic behavior," Dr. Fleck explains.
While she talks more about this concept in Validation, she gives Parade an idea of what this looks like.
Related: Child Psychologists Are Begging Parents and Grandparents To Start Using This One Confidence-Boosting Phrase
"I give the example of my daughter, who agreed that the sugary morning snack her school provided was ruining her appetite for lunch," Dr. Fleck shares. "We said that if she ate the school's 'snack' in the morning, she couldn't have dessert after dinner. I was sure this contingency would work—my kid lives for post-dinner dessert—but it didn't. She kept eating the snack at school, not eating her lunch, and coming home ravenous and unruly. I was frustrated with her for not listening to us, disappointed with the school for providing Oreo cookie muffins and calling them 'snacks,' and frustrated with myself for failing to turn things around. With all of this negativity flying around, I would have stood no chance of finding the Golden Snitch in this situation if I hadn't been in the habit of actively seeking it."
Wait—what was it, then?
"The Golden Snitch—the effective response I would have missed—was her honesty," Dr. Fleck explains. "She could have easily lied about eating the snack so she wouldn't miss out on dessert, but she didn't. This was particularly impressive because she'd recently started experimenting with lying. We'd caught her in a couple of lies and talked to her about the importance of honesty, but it wouldn't have surprised me if she saw an opportunity to use the magical power of lying to secure her dessert after dinner. But she didn't. She had the opportunity to lie, and she didn't take it."
Related: A Clinical Psychologist Is Begging Parents and Grandparents To Stop Making This Punishment Mistake
By finding something positive to focus on and call out, your child or grandchild has the opportunity to feel seen and understood more deeply—helping instill self-confidence instead of shame.
"Positively reinforcing her honesty at this moment by validating it—'I realize you had the opportunity to lie and didn't take it; I'm proud of you,'—is the most effective way to ensure she takes the path of honesty next time she's in a similar fork in the road," Dr. Fleck continues. "The lesson here is that whenever a kid is struggling to make progress in one domain (e.g., skipping the morning snack), look to see if there's progress in another (e.g., honesty). Kids do not develop when and where we expect them to. Ask yourself, 'If I had to reinforce something, what would it be?'"
Up Next:
Related: The Surprising Phrase You Should Stop Saying to Your Child or Grandchild—and What To Say Instead
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Courtesy Dr. Caroline Fleck
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