Quote of the Day: Haim Ginott on Parenting & Family

Notice Ginott’s choice of “overhear” rather than “hear.” “Hear” could be arranged, staged, delivered; “overhear” happens at the edge of a room, through a hallway, on a phone call you didn’t realize your child could catch. That single word shifts the scene from performance to proof: “If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.”

Children assemble their self-image from the reflections we hand them. Direct praise can land with a thud, too loud, too targeted, too obviously meant to shape behavior. But admiration spoken to someone else carries the ring of truth precisely because it isn’t aimed at them. When a child “accidentally” catches you telling a teacher, a neighbor, or a grandparent what you appreciate, it reads less like strategy and more like identity: this is who you think I am.

That matters because identity is a powerful behavioral engine. Social psychology has long noted how expectations become self-fulfilling; children often grow toward the person they believe you already see. The trick is credibility. Vague flattery (“He’s the best!”) can feel hollow, while concrete observations build a sturdy self-concept: she kept going after a mistake; he was gentle when he could have been sharp. This is resilience taught without lecturing.

And there’s a warning tucked inside the wisdom: the same side channel that carries belief also carries shame. Offhand criticism, careless jokes, irritated labels, can imprint precisely because it sounds unguarded. Overheard speech becomes the emotional climate of a home, shaping love without ever announcing itself.

Haim Ginott, the child psychologist and author of Between Parent and Child, built a modern parenting legacy on empathy, precise language, and the conviction that tone is a form of instruction.

Applied today, the practice is almost disarmingly simple: say one sincere, specific good thing about your child to someone else, within earshot, and let them discover, quietly, that your faith doesn’t depend on an audience.