At home

The people at home are where the drawer is fullest, because you see them most, and where it's hardest to open, because the silence has the most history. Some notes on each, and these are my suggestions except where I say otherwise.

Your partner. The good thoughts about a partner tend to be about how they are rather than what they did, and that makes them feel bigger to say. Keep them small anyway. The detail, the effect line, the doorway. "You didn't rise to it with him tonight. I would have." That's the whole thing. If you've been together a long time and the first one lands with a strange look, chapter 12 covered why, and chapter 10 covered the brush-off. Say the next one two days later and keep the size the same. What builds the picture over time is not the size of any one said thing but the fact that the said version now exists at all.

Your children. Here there's research, and it changes the shape a little. Mueller and Dweck published six studies in 1998 on what happens when children are praised for being clever as opposed to for their effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence went on to care more about looking good than about learning, and after a failure they persisted less, enjoyed the task less and did worse than children praised for how hard they'd worked. The children praised for effort thought ability could grow. The ones praised for being clever thought it was fixed. That study is old and it's about one kind of task, and I'd hold it loosely. But it says the detail matters even more with children than with adults. "You're so clever" is a verdict and it comes with a cost. "You kept going at that when it wouldn't come out" is a detail, and it's what they can do again. Deci's meta-analysis, in chapter 9, found that a good word did less for children's interest than for adults', and I'd guess that's because so much of what children get is verdicts. Give them the thing you saw.

Your parents. This is the drawer with the oldest contents and the most obvious deadline, and I'll be blunt about it. Your dad on the floor with the grandchildren is a thing you've noticed a dozen times. Say it once, this Sunday, in passing, as small as you can make it. "You're good with them. You've got more patience than I have." Then talk about something else. It'll be noticeable, and he'll pretend it wasn't, and it will have been said, which is the only outcome that matters when the deadline is the one it is.

One last thing about home. Thank them now is about thanks for what people do for you, and at home the two habits overlap, because the same person laid the table and handled the call. Do both. But notice that they're different sentences, and the drawer this book is about holds the second kind, the opinion with nothing done for you in it. That's the one that tells a person what you think they're like, and it's the one families most often go without.