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Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children
- arittr 8y agoThis is just so interesting - I think these rules are more applicable to everyday communication between adults than they may seem at first glance. The point on taking a negative statement and rephrasing it to be positive reminds me of the time I spent in customer support... I feel like people react more strongly to the way something is said than the bare content of what you’re saying.
- selljamhere 8y agoOne of my favorite examples of public speaking is Mr. Rogers testifying before a Senate subcommittee in support of funding for national public television. He is calm, thoughtful and thorough through the entire process, speaking simply and without grandeur. It's a small wonder he found such success, and a great example of the importance of clear communication. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA
- BlackLotus89 8y agoI only know Mr Rogers from the little american TV I watch (I'm from germany) and I'm feeling very happy for the generation(s) that were fortunate to see this program. Until now I didn't see a single episode, but hearing him speak about it made me at least a little bit curious to what this program is all about. The article of course did the prework for it.
- wavefunction 8y agoI was a child in the 80s in the US and there were some wonderful programs aimed at children that made a huge impact on my generation if nothing else: 3-2-1 Contact, Reading Rainbow, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street all left indelible and positive marks on my person and have made be a better person.
- BlackLotus89 8y agoI never watched sesame street even thought it aired here. I watched Löwenzahn and a bit "Die Sendung mit der Maus" when I was young and I couldn't imagine who I would be today if I didn't watched this when I was young. It's a bit sad (at least for me) to admit, but I think some programs helped shaped me into the person I'm today, for better or worse. Today the TV hopefully hasn't got the impact on me that it used to have and I only watch selected programs and not the mainstream TV (I mean the broadcasted channels), but I guess series and movies are still a big part of my life that have a bigger impact on me than I would like to admit. Anyway what I really wanted yo say is that I'm happy for content that tries to deliver good values and information without trying to manipulate.
- gowld 8y ago> It's a bit sad (at least for me) to admit, but I think some programs helped shaped me into the person I'm today, Why is that sad? This the large purpose of culture, of art and literature.
- BlackLotus89 8y agoI thought oft it as sad, because my opinion on TV is as low as it can get and never realized the true influence this medium had on me. It's also sad because this influence was positive and I (at least I think that I) see the decay of modern entertainment.
- foobarian 8y agoToday the programs shaping kids seem to be videos on Youtube Kids of random people unboxing new toys.
- tejohnso 8y agoAnd if you received TV Ontario there was also Readalong, Read All About It, Write On, The Edison Twins, Eureka!, and probably others I've missed. All highly focused on educational content. Oh and Mr. Wizard's World coming out of Calgary. At least we still have Sesame Street.
- solarkraft 8y agoYou sent me on a trip of watching videos about him. Pretty touching & enlightening stuff. Thanks.
- mhb 8y agoThen you'll probably enjoy this too: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-hero-esq1198/ https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-...
- schoen 8y agoThe Emmy speech mentioned there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upm9LnuCBUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upm9LnuCBUM
- covercash 8y agoI have a playlist of Fred Rogers videos including an AMAZING 4.5 hour interview that covers everything you could ever want to know about him: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1eNhoNMQfyH0OCAwcixAmkkYz0tyPpln https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1eNhoNMQfyH0OCAwcixA...
- Hannan 8y agoHey, thanks a ton. I'm only on the second video, and it already blows my mind how the man is even more the character than the character.
- corysama 8y agoThere’s a great clip out there of Levar Burton describing being invited to Roger’s set for the first time. He says he was impressed by the character, then by how Rogers stayed in character between takes, then he saw Fred speak with his wife and realized it wasn’t a character.
- covercash 8y agoPart 4 of the interview is my favorite, but the entire thing is wonderful!
- oraknabo 8y agoI literally cried the first time I saw this.
- rkuykendall-com 8y agoI saw 'Won't You be My Neighbor' on Thursday, and this scene is in it, but before that something I hadn't seen: Clips of the previous 2 days of testimony, which were NOT going well for PBS. The senator holding the hearings was, I believe, legitimately interested in getting to the core of the issue and had VERY little tolerance for weak arguments or filler. That's why, at the beginning, Fred is asking him to read the written statement: The senator had banned people from just reading pre-written statements. It also adds so much more weight to the Senetor's response at the end, knowing that Fred wasn't being rushed in for a quick decision, but the last in many many hours of testimony that was not going well for PBS.
- djrogers 8y agoThis is fascinating! I'm absolutely floored whenever I see anyone who has such a meticulous and detailed mastery of their craft.
- Endy 8y agoThese rules might not always apply well to discourse between adults. On the other hand, if you are an adult who is speaking to - and leading - children, Mr. Rogers still provides a positive example of how to approach the subject. Distilling challenging subjects into simple, factual, statements without negative emotional attachments can be extremely difficult. When it works well, you provide an invaluable level of education. If it doesn't, at least you've done your best - and in general children will respond positively to the attempt.
- quadrangle 8y agoThe abstraction works well for everyone: communicate thoughtfully with deep intention and understanding. Do all you can to know the perspective and interpretations that your audience will have and work diligently to express things both clearly and compassionately. For example, think about how much good could be achieved if the knowledge of people that the advertising industry holds were used exclusively to present only messages truly in the listeners' best interest and with real compassion. To reword my abstraction: be mindful and compassionate in everything you communicate and always seek the best expert sources in improving your communication skills.
- pasbesoin 8y agoAmongst other things, worth noting how informed his approach was. At a time when a lot of pedagogy, and professionalism regarding same, seems to be under assault.
- germinalphrase 8y agoWell - you know - those are soft skills.
- delbel 8y agoMr. Rogers sings the line "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood," but many people growing up remember the line as "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood." When I grew up it was "in THE neighborhood", not "this". Who else remembers this? What the hell? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL3xSctTB5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL3xSctTB5c
- rangibaby 8y agoMandela effect?
- ghostbrainalpha 8y agoThis is my favorite example of "The Mandela Effect". https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/24/the-mandela-effect/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/24/the-mandela-effect/
- iNate2000 8y agoI never until this moment even thought he said "this." But it totally jibes with the article. It may not be a beautiful day in the neighborhood where the child is watching, but it's a beautiful day in this neighborhood. Fascinating!
- tzakrajs 8y agoIt's always been "this". I remember as a child how it seemed jarring.
- gowld 8y agoHow many times did you hear Mr Rogers singing it, and how many times have you heard other people singing it? When people replay a memory or reproduce an experience, they clean it up. "THE" sounds much better to most people, so unless you are actively watching Mr Rogers singing it, the singer usually sings "THE". Pop Culture is full of "THE" version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXerenZzJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXerenZzJI (but Mr Rogers said "THIS" in his 1997 Emmy Award speech) Daniel Tiger changed "THIS" to "THE" in the version that has been playing on PBS for the past 6 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiPBu_AtU8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiPBu_AtU8k https://www.fredrogers.org/frc/store/product/its-beautiful-day-neighborhood https://www.fredrogers.org/frc/store/product/its-beautiful-d...
- corysama 8y agoI'm sure the timing of this article is not coincidentally aligned with the release of the Mr. Roger documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? :) I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it's wonderful. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhwktRDG_aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhwktRDG_aQ
- sandmansandine 8y agoI saw it last night, it was wonderful and very well done.
- Darthy 8y agoAlso, the trailer for the TV drama "Kidding", with Jim Carrey playing a character somewhat inspired by Mr. Rogers, was released yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzwU7dbmAyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzwU7dbmAyY
- jstewartmobile 8y agoAbsolutely! Every non-controversial article in the mainstream media has one paid PR guru or another behind it.
- chriselles 8y agoI have to admit that as a child I tried to avoid watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood as I much preferred cartoons like Tom & Jerry that contained frightening levels of violence looking back in retrospect. But decades later as a parent I am incredibly grateful for the body of work Fred Rogers and his collaborators and guests created. As an adult I see the value he created and the value millions of kids captured. Fred Rogers was a great human being that helped make the world a better place, one kid at a time, for decades.
- toasterlovin 8y agoI think much of the value Mr. Rogers brought was just that we knew he existed. That we could carry around this archetype of pure goodness as a thing to strive toward. And the amazing thing is that you get that even if you didn’t want to watch the show as a kid.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoHow secure and loved did you feel as a child? I suspect that people who felt lonely and scared in their life may have gravitated to Mr Rogers. Also are you sure you remember far enough back? Mr Rogers target market is preschool, younger than most of your childhood memories.
- beenBoutIT 8y agoIt's interesting that Mr. Roger's Neighborhood(the TV show) isn't a bigger deal. The show doesn't need I improving, all of the subject matter is still highly relevant in today's world, and it's entertaining.
- gowld 8y agoNew episodes stopped over 15 years ago, after a 30 year run. It played in reruns for at least another 10 years (I'm not sure if it's still airing), and the animated spin-off has been airing new episodes for the past 6 years. It's still kind of a big deal. It's aimed at pre-schoolers, so you won't find too many teens and adults talking about it online much. Old stuff always gets stale, and does so more quickly these days where fashion and technology change so quickly.
- gowld 8y agoThe article makes an oblique reference to it, but it's worth noting that Fred Rogers graduated from a theological Seminary and his television show was his Presbyterian ministry. Mr Rogers is at the same time a sort of stereotypical Christian character (imagine The Simpsons' Flanders without the satirical comedy aspects) and also not the image of a Christian minister that we usually see in the mainstream media and popular culture. Mr Rogers may be most intentionally-Christian cultural influence that wasn't widely noticed as "Christian", in the lives of millions of people -- for both many people who don't think Christianity is a part of their lives as well as for many people who do. I write this not to proselytize or to suggest that you should become Christian if you respect Mr Rogers, but as a reminder that the image you have in your mind of an X (for whatever X that is a large weakly-connected community) should not generalize to all X, and some very X-ey people might not look X-ey at all. The article also shows that there is often a lot of hard work and educated insight behind things that look very simple and basic.
- humanrebar 8y ago> Mr Rogers may be most intentionally-Christian cultural influence that wasn't widely noticed as "Christian", in the lives of millions of people I'd put Dr. King in the same category.
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- skybrian 8y agoAre you saying that not everyone knew he was a preacher? I don't have that impression.
- humanrebar 8y agoI think popular culture considers him an activist first and a preacher incidentally. When people condemn Christian culture and teaching as hateful, they are likely forgetting Dr. King is in the picture. > ...not the image of a Christian minister that we usually see in the mainstream media and popular culture. The trope of a Christian preacher in popular culture resembles Bakker or Osteen more than Rogers or King.
- rdlecler1 8y agoBut was he right? Was this best? A lot of research from the 50s turned out to be bad. The article doesn’t help us out here.
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- jackvalentine 8y agoWhat do you think?
- Endy 8y agoThat depends - do you still remember to look for the helpers?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wiradikusuma 8y ago"..concerned that it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support from a televised figure.. ..he went back to production carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse children in that way." In today's world, producers would probably do the opposite to up-sell merchandise and stuff.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoIn the world then, Captain Kangaroo did sell merchandise.
- DonHopkins 8y agoSo what do you think Mister Do Bee was selling??? I was so confused as a child. Didn't he go on to develop three.js? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvdSGkN0aU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvdSGkN0aU "Happy Jack says it's time for Romper Room, and time for us to say good morning to Do Bee. And welcome to Romper Room. Do Bee would like you to put on your wings. Put on big Do Bee Wings and then start flying with us all over Romper Room! Come on, flap those wings!"
- DoreenMichele 8y agoI don't have any idea why the top comment here is about Christianity. Understanding the psychology of small kids and good communication practices has nothing to do with religion. It's a great read. I'm not as taken with the nine steps at the end for how to speak Freddish. I do agree with some of the steps, but not all. Some of those steps are a good communication practice with any demographic, such as framing it positively. The mind has some trouble with statements framed as "Don't do X." Modeling what does work is generally vastly more effective, efficient and comprehensible.
- humanrebar 8y ago> I don't have any idea why the top comment here is about Christianity. People around here don't like Christianity. See the TV show Silicon Valley S5E4. You wouldn't see a thread about the merits of being Japanese, female, or vegetarian in a tangentially related HN post. People put religious identity in another category for some reason.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoThat's a funny thing to read here given that two of the top three people on the leaderboard very publicly admit to being Catholic. My impression is there are quite a lot of Christians on HN and most of them just don't wear it on their sleeve while posting here, which is as it should be, in my opinion. Additionally, as a woman, I see threads derail on the detail of gender identity a lot. I have spent nearly nine years working at making it possible to post as openly female without irrelevant questions about my gender routinely derailing discussions that I choose to participate in.
- humanrebar 8y agoRight. People are pig-headed about gender, but people generally don't deny that women deserve respect as women. And they generally don't argue that diversity of gender is worth celebrating. The top comment in this thread is basically celebrating Fred Rogers as a Christian and there are many threads and responses arguing that the Christian part is irrelevant or even despicable. I would expect analogous comments about women to be moderated out of the picture here. And I have seen that happen. I can't say why Christian members of the HN community aren't more outspoken about this shortcoming in tech diversity culture. I suspect the answer to that question is fairly personal and complex. As to "wearing on their sleeves", I don't see that happening much at all. On the contrary, I see people behaving much more in a closeted manner if anything. I don't think that's healthy for anyone.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoAn interesting article, though I don't think this bit is entirely accurate: > because he knew that children—the preschool-age boys and girls who made up the core of his audience—tend to hear things literally. It's not about hearing things 'literally', but it's that children are less adept than (some) adults in dealing with the polysemy inherent in natural language, and especially in navigating polysemy based on context. The example they provide is a good case in point: > For instance, Greenwald mentioned a scene in a hospital in which a nurse inflating a blood-pressure cuff originally said “I’m going to blow this up.” Greenwald recalls: “Fred made us redub the line, saying, ‘I’m going to puff this up with some air,’ because ‘blow it up’ might sound like there’s an explosion, and he didn’t want the kids to cover their ears and miss what would happen next.” So blow up meaning "explode" isn't any more 'literal' an interpretation than blow up meaning "to inflate". In fact, if anything, the latter is the more literal interpretation. But the point is that blow up is polysemous, and the "explode" sense is common enough that children might take that to be the primary sense and (especially) younger ones might not be able to use the immediate context (nurse with a blood pressure cuff) to discard that sense as unlikely.
- DonHopkins 8y agoI agree 100% with Berkeley Breathed when he wrote: Mister Rogers: Welcome to my neighborhood, boys and girls! Did you enjoy meeting Senator Kravitz today? I did. He told us about something called "inflation," didn't he? Can YOU say "inflation?" Opus: Inphlabph. Mister Rogers: Good! Can you say "Mister Rogers should be paid more dough?" Opus: Mister Rogers should - Mister Rogers: Can you put it on a postcard? https://78.media.tumblr.com/dad9d0c81aab7c572572e6151483dd8c/tumblr_ntspnv3GTR1t3i99fo10_1280.jpg https://78.media.tumblr.com/dad9d0c81aab7c572572e6151483dd8c... I believe that was a Soupy Sales reference: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-OGy3Kh7yM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-OGy3Kh7yM Here is Mister Rogers talking to the children in Congress, successfully asking them to send him millions of little green pieces of paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA
- sytelus 8y agoLOL. I'm purposely using complicated language with my kids. They many time get only gist of it but its lot of fun. For example, instead of saying "go ask you mom", I would purposely say "Have you considered proposing this question to your mom?". I'm not sure what child psychologists would say about this.
- feiss 8y agoI agree with this approach. They understand the message, and learn a richer and more complex vocabulary and language in a natural way, which may eventually lend in more subtle and complex mental model.
- Endy 8y agoThat seems significantly less complicated to me. After all, you're presenting the same overall concepts explicitly and without concatenation. The concept of "big words are scary" in much of our modern education is one that I have difficulty in understanding; a word should be judged on the complexity of its meaning rather than its spelling or pronunciation.