Caroline's blog: Little words go a long way

I love bookshops. I can happily whittle away any chunk of time browsing books on any subject area going. Last week, on the way to a meeting, I had some time to kill at Waterloo station, and so indulged my guilty pleasure. I saw a new book that made me smile: “They go low, we go high”. According to the cover, it’s a compilation by Philip Collins of “speeches that shaped the world and why we need them.”

The title may just be six words but it’s instantly recognisable coming from a speech by Michelle Obama some years back where she explained, in a fantastically matter-of-fact way, the Obama family ethic of not responding to the criticism and insults they received whilst dad happened to have the most powerful job in the world, but instead choosing to take the moral high ground.

The reason I was pleased that this quote made it to the front cover was because those six words inspired a parenting approach I tried out last year. Michelle Obama’s speech obviously wasn’t aimed at dispute-resolution for the under eights, but I had a go at recycling the spirit. We had hit a phase where, especially in the afterschool graveyard slot, the bickering, put downs and trying to get the last word were, frankly, painful. So, one day on the way home from school, I introduced a new game called (rather uninventively) “going high”. Whenever one tot made a barely-veiled criticism, the other had to choose to say something positive instead of a negative response.

Initially, it worked an absolute treat, and I really thought I might have cracked this parenting lark. My little Superhero, for whom life is basically one big game, was a natural. When his feathers were ruffled he would respond with the most beautifully magnanimous comments. He would smile and complement his sibling on her outfit or her class assembly. It was delightful. My more studious Disney Princess, with her deeper inbuilt sense of justice, found it harder. When she felt she had been wronged she would screw up her little face and, after a few breaths, manage to come out with a positive response. It was lovely to see the smile of relief on her face when she did.

Sadly, like many games during this phase of life, our game of “going high” didn’t last long at all. It took effort. It wasn’t the way that little minds were naturally wired to operate. It got to the point where me cajoling a tot to “go high” would simply be ignored, or they would “go low” deliberately to make their point. It was nice for those few weeks that it lasted.

We did, however, find an ongoing application to our “going high” game. When one of the tots happened to see a newspaper story, or hear something beyond their years, it gave a good framework for explaining that people can make good or bad choices to go high or low, and that will always have consequences for others. I got so used to thinking in those terms that for a while I found myself listening to conversations in any number of contexts, from political interviews on the news, to meetings, to frayed tempers on the tube, and finding myself providing a mental commentary as to who was going high and who was going low. It actually felt quite a healthy psychological approach to take.

I guess the power of Michelle Obama’s six words came through the fact that everyone, from the very littlest (as my tots proved), could find some encouragement through their sentiment. I’m resolving to listen out and see what other messages in the world could be helpfully applied to family life. The world affairs’ corner of Waterstones isn’t where I typically look for parenting tips, but next time I’m passing I think I will buy a copy of Philip Collins’ book, and see who else’s soundbites we might be able to put to good use.

Caroline is the proud mum of a 7 year old Disney Princess and a 5 year old Superhero. She is also a senior associate in the pensions team at a magic circle law firm where she tries to balances work and family life by mixing office and home-based working for four days over five days each week

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• Families