Six Steps to Parent Feedback Success: #6 Be Specific and Prescriptive

In this post in the feedback series, we focus on the importance of being specific and prescriptive in supporting parents’ improvement.  In preceding posts we have stressed the importance of starting by identifying the positives, working to protect self-esteem, focusing on improvement and the future, being interactive and flexible, and having a helping spirit.  These elements work together to make it more likely that the parent can hear, reflect, and improve their parenting practices.

 Two often feedback is too vague.  Saying, “You have to do better,” is neither specific, nor prescriptive.  Most often, if someone knew how to do better, they would.  What is the difference between being specific and prescriptive? Using a lighthearted example, telling someone, “Your feet are too big,” is specific.  However, though the statement is specific, it is not prescriptive.  It doesn’t tell someone what to do about their oversized tootsies. A prescription provides a clear description of what to do. Following some of the earlier suggestions and adding the prescriptive aspect, it might be better to say something like, “I wear dark shoes because it makes my feet look smaller.”  Do you think it might help you too?”  Here the prescription is given in a way that invites dialog.

Let’s look at the value of combining being specific and prescriptive.  Let’s start with, “When your child loses interest in reading a book, switch to another activity,” as a prescription.  It is prescriptive in that it tells you what to do, but it lacks specificity.  We could make it more specific by saying, “When your child loses interest in reading a book, what do think of watching where his eyes go and asking if he wants to play with the toy he is looking at?”  Now it is both prescriptive and specific. By phrasing it as a question it is also interactive and implies flexibility.   

When giving feedback, strive to focus on the performance under consideration.  Focus on what the parent can do differently, rather than micro-analyzing all that she didn’t do well.  Recognize that all of us tend to personalize feedback.  You might say, “You could do this better.”  But the parent receiving the feedback may very well hear something like, “I am not good enough,” or “You don’t think I love my child.” Concentrate on how the parent can improve.

Try sitting shoulder to shoulder and reviewing the parenting assessment video.  That way you are both looking at the same thing and reflecting upon what could have gone differently.  Quite literally, the performance is there in front of you both, but happened in the past.  This provides some emotional distance.  This feels very different than sitting face to face.  In the Feedback Workshop we do a little exercise that shows the strong emotional difference between reviewing something shoulder to shoulder versus sitting face to face when someone gives you feedback.  When developing your strategy for giving feedback, include how you will keep both of you focused on the performance.

Observational parenting assessment tools can provide information you need to be specific.  Many staff find that, prior to actually assessing parenting, they only have a gut feel about how the parent could improve.  But after using an observational parenting assessment, they gain insights on specific behaviors the parent can improve [Comfort, Gordon, & Unger (2006). Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale: A Window Into Many Facets of Parenting. Zero to Three Journal, 26(5), 37-44].  For example, KIPS assesses 12 facets of parenting, which provide insights into how parents can nurture each individual child.  Moving on to the prescriptive part, if staff are using a parenting curriculum or a manualized intervention, they can use the written materials to guide the content of the prescription.  To facilitate this process, KIPS has crosswalks to several popular parenting curriculum.