These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Criticizing Children

• Children’s nature varies from one child to another, but they are generally sensitive because of their stage of development. The difference between a sensitive mature person and a sensitive child is that vitriolic criticism may cause negative effects on a child for a lifetime.

• Children are smarter than we often think they are, and they are also more capable of manipulating us than we can imagine. Keep this in mind as you criticize a child and wait for them to comply as you would expect.

• Childhood is an extended stage; it is not logical to treat children in the same way at different stages of their childhood. Pay attention to particular changes in the mood and maturity of the child during the stages of childhood. The criticism that you direct to children should depend largely on their ages and the changes that occur during the stages of childhood.

• Children do not resemble each other, whether in psychological nature or their upbringing. The response of each child depends mainly on their nature and upbringing, and it is wise to pay attention to this when criticizing the child.

• Children sometimes deliberately ignore criticism or attempt to tease the mature person who is criticizing them. Do not take this as a personal challenge; rather, criticize them clearly, honestly, and firmly, and do not cause them to feel that you are watching them afterward to check the result.

• The vast differences between generations and children’s sense that adults tend to control them are the most prominent obstacles that hinder children’s acceptance of criticism.

• As it is most efficient to lead by example, with children, specifically, it is most efficient to criticize by example.

• Although simple and often seemingly naive, children’s criticism of adults is usually frank and honest and often contains very useful suggestions.

• As much as you can, avoid criticizing one child in front of another child.

• Confronting children with a criticism is sometimes a test of your abilities in the face of abstract logic—children’s arguments and responses are often unpredictable, and they generally doubt societal preconceptions.