Author’s practical guidance
The face they think you made
Source named in the book: facial and vocal signals between adult and child (Tronick)
A child who watches adults closely is reading a channel that is always broadcasting.
Say this now
“That face was about the traffic. Nothing to do with you.”
Gives the expression an owner and a cause. Most of the fear is about not knowing which it was.
“You can ask me. I'll always tell you the true answer.”
Turns guessing into asking, which is the habit worth building for the next ten years.
Do this
- Say what your face was about when you notice them checking it.
- Keep praise and correction in different sentences, so one does not color the other.
- Be specific about what you liked — general approval is harder to trust.
- Invite the question: "ask me if you're not sure."
- Answer it the same way the fifth time as the first.
Avoid this
- "I'm not disappointed." — said flatly, it confirms rather than corrects.
- Reassuring at length — the size of the reassurance tells them the thing was big.
- "You're imagining it." — they are not. They read something. They just read it wrong.
If it repeats
If they apologize for things that need no apology, they are working from a read they never checked. Ask what they think you thought — the answer is usually specific, wrong and easy to correct.
Why the book suggests this
A child who watches adults closely is reading a channel that is always broadcasting. Tronick's work is about how much information sits in a face and a tone — and how young children track it long before they can put any of it into words.
What they cannot yet do is judge the size of what they read. A flicker of tiredness gets filed as disappointment in them, and once filed it does not get checked. That is why the small hesitation you have forgotten is still being carried around an hour later.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Deep Feelings
45 prepared situations in this family area.