Loving Your Child's Mind Socratically

Why you should learn to focus on and appreciate how your child is reasoning

As an adult, when we go to a social event, we appreciate when people give us attention rather than ignore us. When they are interested in our ideas, we are more likely to focus on our ideas and develop them. When we form lasting social relationships, perhaps we engage with some people more via laughter, others via dancing or other physical activity, and still others via intellectual dialogue. When we have relationships based on intellectual dialogue, those people stimulate us intellectually to think about our ideas before, during, and after meeting with them.

Especially for a child, attention is love. When we give a child attention for a particular behavior, we are rewarding a child in arguably the most important way we can reward them. We are sending them the most important signal of what we value.

Strangely it feels as if people talk more about the data on which AI has been trained than the experiences on which young human beings have been trained. Indeed, insofar as our mental model of “education” and “training” consists of classrooms and lessons, we forget the more fundamental role of experience - and especially social experience.

Even in utero, the fetal brain is formed and develops in response to the mother’s voice,

Language learning begins in the womb, and it begins with prosody. Exposure to speech in the womb leads to lasting changes in the brain, increasing the newborns’ sensitivity to previously heard languages. The mother’s voice is the most dominant and consistent sound in the womb, so the person carrying the fetus gets first dibs on influencing the fetus. If the mother speaks two languages, her infant will show equal preference and discrimination for both languages.

Thus social interactions, including in particular human verbal interactions, are one of the most fundamental means by which human brains (and therefore minds) are developed.

How, exactly, mothers and early care-givers talk to their children makes a significant difference in their development. For instance, “mindreading,” the process of ascribing mental states, thoughts and feelings, to oneself and others is a developmental stage that is contingent on the nature of the interactions with early care-givers. The frequency with which a mother discusses desires and emotions with a 15 month old predicts the child’s mindreading performance at 24 months. The frequency of mother’s talk of thoughts and knowledge at 24 months (more complex topics than desires and emotions) predicts a child’s ability to mindread at 33 months. Moreover in cultures in which it is regarded as inappropriate to talk about mental states, such as Samoa, children discover the phenomenon of false beliefs about 4 or 5 years later than in the West (all taken from Cecilia Hayes’ fabulous book Cognitive Gadgets, 152-153).

Because education is typically understood as a matter of teaching, or “giving lessons,” the invisible and pervasive nature of moment by moment social and verbal interactions are often ignored. Young human beings have evolved to optimize for survival, status, and later reproduction in a highly social environment. Robin Dunbar, of “Dunbar number” fame, is a leading advocate of the “Social Brain Hypothesis,” that our brains evolved due to the social complexity of human groups,

The ultimate evolutionary driver is not simply the capacity to engage socially or live in large groups but the extent to which this allows the animals to solve the problems associated with successful survival and reproduction. The proximate mechanism involves solving the coordination problem that lies at the heart of maintaining cohesive social groups. To the extent that primates solve this second problem (group coordination), they also solve the first (predation risk).

Thus social interaction, including verbal interaction, is the most fundamental human cognitive activity of all. It is the primary reason why we grew big brains. Any theory of learning, or human development more generally, that ignores the fundamental nature of social cognition in learning is missing the form of learning for which our brains were originally optimized.

When I work with a young child to engage them Socratically, I first focus on getting eye contact and focus. Because they are drawn to adult attention, when they perceive my consistent interest in them, they respond in kind. With, say, some three year olds, five minutes of sustained eye contact and focus may be an achievement. At four years old, it may be an achievement to sustain a verbal exchange on one topic for five minutes - young children may suddenly change the topic or become distracted by something in their environment. So what on earth might it mean to have a “Socratic” conversation with such a young child?

I see the historical Socrates as engaged in the search for consistent and coherent understandings of reality. We have a moral obligation to each other to acknowledge our inconsistencies. In order to do so, we need to be able to reflect on our inconsistencies. We need to be able to compare “Statement A” with “Statement B” and evaluate whether or not they are consistent. If they are not, why not? Is there a way to reconcile our inconsistencies?

Recently I was watching YouTube videos of snakes killing their prey with a four year old boy (lots of fun for both of us!). I heard him various refer to “venom” and “poisonous snakes.” I asked him what was the difference between “venom” and “poison.” He paused, looked away, and thought about it for a minute. Then he looked back and said, “I don’t know.” This is a modest example of getting a young child to pause, reflect, and admit that there is a gap in their understanding.

With very young children as in the three and four year old examples above, most of my banter with them is not remotely intellectual. I’m simply building rapport and the ability to sustain focus on a topic. I opportunistically ask them questions not to paralyze them, but to let them know I’m sincerely interested in their judgment. For instance, while watching the videos, I’d ask him if he thought they were too gross. We had started watching an eagle ripping the guts out of a snake and I asked if we should continue watching or go on, and he agreed we should go on. Later watching snakes bite and paralyze mice I asked him the same, but he was fine with that.

When I ask him his judgment regarding whether or not a video is too gross, I’m sending the subtext that I respect his judgment, that I care about his judgment. I’m showing him that I love his mind.

When I ask him what the difference is between “venom” and “poison,” I’m not trying to trick him. There is no “gotcha” subtext (as there often is with many rationalistic, ego-driven adults who engage in similar “Socratic” interactions). Instead, I’m honestly curious about his world and how he is making sense of it all. Indeed, when I’m engaged in Socratic dialogue with anyone, with the mutual expectation that we are both striving for consistent and coherent understandings, I’m always wondering, “How do they make sense of the world?”

We always enjoy other people who are honestly curious about what we think. We are typically annoyed by people who try to trick us or prove us wrong. The most fundamental aspect of loving your child’s mind while engaging them in intellectual dialogue, in the mutual pursuit of consistency and coherence, is for them to feel that you sincerely care about what they think and why.

Note that we are not “loving” the child’s mind by flattering them with praise such as, “You are so smart” or “Good answer!” or “You got that one right!” The entire structure of recitation questions in school (i.e. when teachers ask us questions to “check for understanding,” i.e. to evaluate whether or not we can “recite” the correct answer) is disrespectful of our own understanding. The social subtext of such questions is that we are subservient to the teacher, that our understanding is subservient to the teacher’s understanding.

If we willingly engage in a game in which we “test” each other for understanding then that is fine. But if the universal social dynamic between children and adults is that the child’s mind and mental processes are irrelevant, then a child will not feel that their mental states are valued. If the student happens to get a sufficient number of “right” answers that they get ego fullfillment from the game of school, they they may willingly play this game for thirteen or more years of schooling. But that is not at all the same as being immersed in a culture of adults who love their mind.

Note that we can and should love children in many ways. We can and should joyeously give them attention and affection for their laughter, their conscientious behavior, their innocence and authenticity, their caring, and all of the positive behaviors they exemplify. We should be immersing them in an environment in which they receive love unconditionally as well as attention and affection for all the good things they do.

But in addition to all of these other good things, I’m on a mission to encourage families to love their children’s minds through warm, respectful Socratic dialogue and thereby enrich their own lives. Let’s normalize a culture of respectful intellectual dialogue with children. This is a prime example of what I mean by conscious cultural creation.

Adrienne McCord, one mother to whom I’ve introduced this practice, comments:

Working with the Socratic Experience has been transformative for our family. Our five-year-old’s curiosity about the world has blossomed, and our connection with her has grown in ways I never imagined. We now engage daily in thoughtful, abstract conversations, and I'm continually amazed by how deeply she explores topics like reason, ethics, and the human experience. Thanks to this Socratic work, motherhood has become even more enriching and joyful, making each day a new adventure in mutual learning and connection.

She and her husband Brendan were inspired to get started by watching my Alana videos, which show a series of Socratic dialogues from the time Alana was four to her present age, twelve. Alana herself is now identifying, editing, and posting 90 second clips of these conversations on Instagram (AlanaExperience).

Can a school based on such dialogue make your child smarter? Maybe, maybe not. But it can certainly make them confident, thoughtful, and articulate.