10 Ways to Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork

Summary

Raising Good Humans: Episode Summary - "10 Ways to Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork"

In the March 7, 2025 episode of Raising Good Humans, Dr. Aliza Pressman delves into the essential skills of collaboration and teamwork, especially pertinent in an era that often emphasizes individualism. Drawing from her expertise as a developmental psychologist and parent educator, Dr. Pressman offers ten actionable strategies for parents to nurture these vital competencies in their children. This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and practical tips shared throughout the episode.

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1. Engage in Team Sports [00:01]

Dr. Pressman underscores the multifaceted benefits of team sports beyond physical fitness. She emphasizes that participation fosters problem-solving, commitment, and the ability to navigate interpersonal dynamics.

“It doesn’t have to be something that they are good at. It has to be something they're just committed to.”
— Dr. Pressman [02:30]

She cautions against the overly competitive, professionalized approach to sports and advocates for viewing team sports as a means to develop collaboration and teamwork skills, irrespective of athletic prowess.

2. Assign Group Projects [07:43]

Encouraging group projects, whether in academic settings or through activities like a family book club, helps children learn to divide responsibilities and value each member's contributions. Dr. Pressman highlights the importance of reflecting on group dynamics, such as leadership roles and equitable participation.

“If your child is one of the kids that kind of goes with the flow and doesn't really feel like initiating or taking on much of these group projects, you can encourage them to think about what is it that's stopping them.”
— Dr. Pressman [08:44]

3. Family Game Nights [08:14]

Regular family game nights using cooperative games can significantly enhance teamwork and collaboration. By requiring players to work together to win, these activities reveal individual strengths and foster a sense of community.

“It is such a great way to collaborate and have teamwork and also notice the strengths that you have, the weaknesses that you have.”
— Dr. Pressman [10:15]

4. Model Teamwork at Home [16:09]

Dr. Pressman advocates for parents to exemplify teamwork through shared household tasks. This not only reduces individual burdens but also builds confidence and essential life skills in children.

“When you model teamwork at home and share tasks and responsibilities as a family, you actually have less on your plate.”
— Dr. Pressman [14:30]

5. Celebrate Group Achievements [19:16]

Acknowledging and celebrating the accomplishments of group efforts reinforces the value of collaboration. Dr. Pressman suggests that celebrations should focus on the collective work rather than individual victories.

“It’s not about the success, it’s not about the win, it’s about the teamwork, it’s about the doing.”
— Dr. Pressman [20:10]

6. Encourage Looking Outward [19:16]

Cultivating empathy by encouraging children to consider others' feelings and perspectives is crucial. Whether through discussions about book characters or daily interactions, understanding others fosters better collaboration.

“It’s about thinking of ways to decorate the house inspired by something going on with the book... It’s about shared conversation.”
— Dr. Pressman [22:45]

7. Work on Conflict Resolution [22:00]

Effective collaboration hinges on the ability to resolve conflicts. Dr. Pressman emphasizes teaching children strategies to handle disagreements constructively, promoting compromise and mutual understanding.

“When you can learn how to have strategies to resolve disagreements, which are inevitable in every collaboration, you are so ahead of the game.”
— Dr. Pressman [24:35]

8. Volunteer as a Team [28:44]

Participating in community service projects as a family fosters a sense of purpose and collective responsibility. Volunteering together enhances empathy and teamwork while contributing to the greater good.

“Together as a family, you are thinking about what is a project we can do voluntarily, where we're serving others.”
— Dr. Pressman [29:10]

9. Incorporate Group Discussions [28:44]

Structured group discussions during family meals or car rides create opportunities for shared dialogue. Dr. Pressman recommends setting focused topics where all family members can contribute equally, enhancing communication skills.

“When we're forced to be listeners and thinkers, we show up.”
— Dr. Pressman [31:00]

10. Encourage a Wide Set of Perspectives [35:23]

Promoting diverse viewpoints within family conversations helps children appreciate different perspectives. Dr. Pressman advises creating an environment where varied opinions are explored and valued, laying the groundwork for effective teamwork in diverse settings.

“Let’s listen and think about different perspectives so that we can be better community members in this world.”
— Dr. Pressman [34:50]

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Conclusion

Dr. Aliza Pressman's episode on fostering collaboration and teamwork offers a wealth of practical strategies for parents aiming to raise socially adept and cooperative individuals. From engaging in team sports and group projects to celebrating collective achievements and encouraging diverse perspectives, each approach is designed to build a strong foundation for effective collaboration. Implementing these ten strategies can transform the parenting journey, making it less overwhelming and more joyous, ultimately contributing to the development of "good humans" ready to thrive in a collaborative world.

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Notable Quotes:

• “It has always been an important skill, but we've seen so much difficulty with young people...”
  — Dr. Pressman [00:30]

• “It’s about the strengths that you have, the weaknesses that you have.”
  — Dr. Pressman [10:15]

• “When you model teamwork at home and share tasks and responsibilities as a family, you actually have less on your plate.”
  — Dr. Pressman [14:30]

• “Let’s listen and think about different perspectives so that we can be better community members in this world.”
  — Dr. Pressman [34:50]

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For parents seeking to enhance their children's collaborative and teamwork abilities, Dr. Pressman's insightful and actionable advice serves as an invaluable guide. Implementing these ten strategies promises not only to strengthen familial bonds but also to equip children with the skills necessary for success in an interconnected world.

Transcript

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

The following podcast is a Dear Media Production welcome to Raising good humans. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman and today my guest is me. And I am talking about 10 Ways to Encourage collaboration and teamwork, which is such an important skill in this world. It has always been an important skill, but we've seen so much difficulty with young people as we focus so much inward and on the independent, individuated self, we've lost a little bit of that sense of teamwork and collaboration and community. So today I'm going to give you 10 tips to encourage collaboration and teamwork. And if you enjoyed this kind of episode, please write a little review. It really helps get it out there. And you can also give a five star rating if you feel so inclined. And as always, you can buy my book, the five Principles of Parenting, your essential guide to Raising Good Humans. And my substack is drlisapressman.substack.com where there are free articles every week, kind of giving you a little bit of the main points from each podcast and then expanding on one of them for just more things to think about. Okay, so the first thing that can change depending on the kind of kid you have is engaging in team sports. I know it seems quite simple, but engaging in team sports is not just good for your endurance and your physical development and your capacity to play, play on a team and show up somewhere and, you know, take losses, take wins, be a good loser, be a good winner. It also is incredibly helpful navigating the problem solving skills of the interpersonal dynamics of your team, or if your coach doesn't play you when you really wanted it, or if you are sick and you're trying to figure out like, how much do I have to push myself to show up for my team versus know that I don't want to get anybody else sick, there's somebody else who can do this and I'm going to just step out. There are just so many small things about commitment to a larger group that can be so solidified when you engage in team sports. And here's where it gets funky. For some reason, engaging in team sports has become professionalized and it seems like you can only play sports if you're going to, you know, be pushing yourself so hard, pushing your child so hard that they're going to be recruitable athletes for college or something. And what I'm hoping for is that you think about team sports not as the skill building of becoming an incredible athlete, but as the skill building of becoming an incredible collaborator and teammates. So it doesn't matter if your particular child is sporty or not, everyone benefits from getting movement, getting practice, even with coordination helps your brain work in different ways. So I encourage team sports. I know that there are plenty of kids who drop team sports by high school because it's gotten too intense. We don't need to have our kids do that. They need to move every day. Even if they're super busy with other things, it's something they can do lightly. It's about that commitment and about getting those healthy benefits. If your child is not a sport person and they just really are like, no, I, I would rather find other ways to move, but I don't want to do team sports. Another thing that you can do is a different kind of team, like doing theater, you know, being part of the school play, it's the same thing. And you don't need to act. You can do lighting or set or stage management. But all of those things help your child learn the skill of working in a group, thinking about what your role is, thinking about what people need from you, what people expect from you, how to make commitments, how to cooperate. And everything from sports to theater are about shared goals. And when you have a shared goal, you really learn how to both be counted on and count on others. And this is going to be a skill that brings this into adulthood. So find something that is capacity for shared goal and get your kids doing it. And, and please don't even think about the professionalized version of it. This doesn't have to be something that they are good at. It has to be something they're just committed to.

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Find out if your school is creating group projects. If there are options to join group projects. It can be even school clubs at lunchtime, but some kind of group project. Ideally their intellectual group projects will which is why if that's not on the table at your school. Although most schools really do encourage this even for young kids in preschool you can have family book club where you invite a bunch of families and you have a group project of book club. Now where is the group part of it? Because the reading does not feel like a group. The group part of it is you encourage collaboration amongst all the kids. One person picks the book per whatever season you have booked. So let's say it's once a month or once a season, there's going to be one of the kids who picks the book. Or you can have a group of kids kind of decide together each book, whatever works, that's something you can design and have them design together. And then as a group, you are working on how to talk about this book in, like, a creative way. So it's not like an adult book club where you might sit around at dinner and talk about different parts of the book that spoke to you and different chapters and different meanings and other literary references and analyzing things. It's not about that kind of academic rigor. It's about thinking of ways to decorate the house. Inspector. Inspired by something going on with the book, or what kind of food should be served and cooked and, you know, what kind of desserts that are related to the book and what kind of games you can play that are related to the book. Maybe you have a scavenger hunt related to the book, or maybe it's a card game because the book has a character that plays a lot of cards. Whatever it is, it's like you've turned this book into a group activity that is articulating to either the adults or to each other what this book is about and how meaningful it is, and just little pieces of it, and it's really fun. But again, you can also academically think about assigning group projects and encouraging the collaboration that is required, the communication that's required. And when you have kids who are doing these kinds of group projects, pay attention, because some of them end up being in charge. They take charge, their leaders or their control freaks, whatever it is, and they tend to do better. So they think this is an old, this is only going to go well if I do it. And I think there are plenty of us in the adult world that can that where that resonates. But we do want to just be reflective with our kids and say, you know, how's that group project going? Who's kind of running it? Does it always seem like it's the same person? Do you notice if other people have a shot, Would that worry you? Or would that make you feel relieved that someone else is taking on this burden? And if your child is one of the kids that kind of goes with the flow and doesn't really feel like initiating or taking on much of these group projects, you can encourage them to think about what is it that's stopping them? Is it an insecurity about the value of their work? Is it because some of the kids are a little bit more assertive about their value or about what has to get done? Or is it that they don't feel like it because they would rather just sort of ride the coattails of others? With that reflection, you can then have different kinds of goals so that you can experience group projects or this group book club in a way that helps your child grow the skill of, again, collaboration and teamwork. Number three, this is my favorite. It's something that we do at least once a month, family game nights. So find ways you can either collaborate with other families, which is what we do, or if you have a big enough family, you can just do it amongst yourselves. But play cooperative games that require collaboration in order to win the game. So, yeah, it's gonna get competitive. And sometimes it does get a little obnoxious at our game nights because some of the kids and adults are more competitive than others. But what's fantastic is you break up into groups. It can be something as simple as the game celebrity, where you put 10 names. You know, each person puts 10 names into a bowl of someone famous. You can do famous authors. You can do famous pop culture people. You can do famous singers. It doesn't matter. And you can make a theme you can think about. Whoever's hosting decides on the theme either way. What's fantastic is that you break up into teams, and now each group needs to work together in order to win. And so, again, with something like celebrity, nobody can take more on than another person on the team. Each person needs to get up there and give clues about who the celebrity is that they have picked from the bowl. And then their team has to guess, and then it goes around. So each person has an opportunity to do it, which means they can't do what sometimes happens in group projects where they're kind of like, I'm not good at this, so I'll let the other people do it. And it is such a great way to collaborate and have teamwork and also notice the. The strengths that you have, the weaknesses that you have. And it's so fun. It's just so fun. And it falls also into the side category of wonderful rituals that you can have. And it's also a wonderful way to cultivate a sense of community. Number four, model teamwork at home. This can be really hard, Especially if you tend to feel like I'll just do everything because I'm going to do it faster, better. I know what's going on. But actually what I'm hoping for is that when you model teamwork at home and share tasks and responsibilities as a family, you actually have less on your plate. There's less resentment building up because everybody is pitching in. And as we know from chores and we know from being able to grow skills of just everyday, mundane things, this actually grows confidence. So think about what are tasks and responsibilities as a family that can demonstrate working together, cooking together, doing dishes together. Those seem like mundane tasks. Actually, cooking is probably not mundane to many of you. It's just for me, as you know, those of you who listen to my podcast often, I'm not the greatest of cooks, but it is a shared activity that you can do. Grocery shopping is a shared activity. You can do. All these things that we tend to take on on our own can be easier. Let's say you go to the grocery store and you give each of your kids and your partner the task of, you know, vegetables, or I'm gonna go and get all the cereals, or I'm gonna go and get whatever fruits. Everybody saves time because you all come back together. Now, of course, with younger kids, you're gonna have to show them how to do that, but it seems, seems mundane and it seems like something, yeah, I can just do that by myself or I can order it on Fresh Direct. But the thing is that going and doing those things is both bonding and it's skill building and actually it's literacy building because for younger kids certainly. But even as kids get older, they don't really know the names of all of the food groups and things that are offered at the grocery store. So it's an opportunity to grow their everyday skills.

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Number 5 Celebrate group achievements so this is one of those things where I know it's Asking something like, I don't love asking more time of everybody because I know everyone's so busy. But there is a reason why there are cast parties after shows and there's a reason why at the end of a sports season, there's a team dinner. Anytime there's been a group activity, mark it, celebrate it. Make sure that it's clear that that's a value that you have, that collaboration and teamwork is actually something that is worthy of celebration. Because every single time it happens, you're bringing different personalities together, different people together, different opinions, different hopes and dreams, different goals. You're finding something shared and you're finding a way to all work together. That is a huge win. So make sure to celebrate those things so that it's valued. Because the things that we value, we celebrate. And when we keep doing that over and over, it gets baked into our kids systems. The that like this is to celebrate. And it's not about the success, it's not about the win, it's about the teamwork, it's about the doing, it's not about the achievement of the win. Number six, encourage looking outward. Okay, so sort of a precursor to the idea of collaboration is thinking about other people. And one of the things that we tend to do is we ask how our kids feel and we don't expand to how do you think the other person feels in a group setting? How do you think each person was experiencing it? When you're reading books, you can ask questions about the different characters. And don't just lead with the protagonist questions, but think about the other characters. Not just for perspective taking, but for the idea that what is going on inside of you isn't necessarily the most important data in the world. Again, it's so wonderful that we have gotten to a place where we're paying attention to our feelings, we're looking inward, we're being reflective. We don't want it to be at the expense or cost of wondering about the experience of others and how we might contribute to changing that experience, enhancing that experience, sharing goals so that they're modified to serve more people than just us. So it's a little bit like the precursor to collaboration is just looking outward a little bit. And we know that there's this other benefit, which is particularly for kids or adults who are struggling when they look inward, who are feeling dejected or sad or disenchanted or hopeless. Forgetting about so much, looking inward and moving to hey, what can I do to help other people can really bolster mood and mental health. And it can also get you engaged. And then you can get into collaboration or group project or volunteer work. Number seven. Working on conflict resolution is such an important skill for being able to collaborate, because think about it. If you can't resolve conflicts or you don't know how to regulate yourself to reflectively figure out what's needed to resolve a conflict, you're going to avoid group tasks. And the more you avoid group tasks, the higher risk you are that you're going to keep doing, doing that and get worse and worse at the skill of collaboration. So we really want to teach kids the strategies for what we do when we have a disagreement and how we can compromise. This can start so early. Usually if you have siblings, it starts right then and there the minute the second sibling can crawl and take something from the first sibling. But it also happens in school and on play dates, during pretend play, for example, or just if there's only one toy that multiple kids want to play with. You can gently coach your young people not to tell them expressly what to do, but to teach them the questions to ask to solve the conflict, to think about what they want as a goal, to think about what the other person wants as a goal, and to learn how to compromise. So that each person may not be the absolute happiest they could be, but as a shared experience, they both get a little bit of what they're looking for. Sometimes it's also true that they get nothing that they were looking for, because in a particular situation, the best conflict resolution was for them to apologize and figure out how to repair. These are all incredible skills that we need. And the most. The easiest place to start is with reflective questions so that we can ask kind of what's going on for me here? I mean, ultimately, when our kids get older, they're going to be able to ask themselves in a conflict setting. Hold on, first of all, am I safe? So we teach them to take a breath or put their hands under cold water, or looking around the room to find five things in five different colors, Anything that tells their brain this conflict is not a sign of danger. Once they get the skill of learning that a conflict is not a sign of danger, it's just part of the process, then they can be relieved of that fight, flight, or freeze stress response, and actually be reflective, think about what is best to do next, how to communicate. All of those wonderful skills can only come into play when you learn that a conflict is not an emergency where you have to go into fight, flight, or freeze, Then you've taken a pause, you can reflect and ask yourself, what do I need right now? What does this situation need right now in order to be resolved? And what's the larger goal? Sometimes we get so fixated on being right that we don't think about the larger goal. This happens with adults all the time. So imagine we can start training kids much earlier to think about that. Like, if you wanted to have a nice play date, are you going to spend the whole play date fighting over one toy? Does that meet your larger goal of having a really fun time with your friend? Or is it maybe fixating so much on this one thing and being right and winning that you're actually losing the bigger picture, which was you wanted to have fun with your friend. These are questions to start asking at young ages so that when we get older, they're baked into our system again. When you can learn how to have strategies to resolve disagreements which are inevitable in every collaboration, interaction, community setting, teams, you are so ahead of the game because you know, this is just part of the process. It doesn't intimidate me. I'm not going to storm away and I'm not going to give up on all the benefits of interpersonal connections and collaborations.

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Number eight, volunteer as a team. So instead of individually thinking about what do I care about, collectively decide what do I care about. So participate in a family community service project. So is everybody going to care about the turtles? If you know, one kid was like really passionate about turtles? No. So can you either participate in a community project that serves everybody's interests or can you do multiple ones and at different times, different kids and family members get to kind of lead the charge on what the focus will be. But what I think is really the most important is that together as a family, you are thinking about what is a project we can do voluntarily, where we're serving others. It gets you outside of the self. So again, as I talked about before, that's incredibly beneficial. It fosters empathy, it requires communication and also it's still teamwork and you get so passionate about it. Think about when you are on a team running a 10k with a group of people to serve a cause. It's the same thing and it could be that it feels so good and you get all the benefits of teamwork and you're also doing something for the greater good. Number nine, incorporate group discussions, especially in the car and at family meal time because those are such great opportunities. You can also have official set aside family meeting time, which is highly encouraged and awesome. But I, I can see some people just being like, I. We cannot even find time to have that many meals together. I'm certainly not adding family meeting night. So if that's too much, make sure that you have some focus, some intention on family meal time where there's group discussion. So what is group discussion? It means that there's one topic, there aren't side conversations and everyone's opinions are valued and discussed. So the three year old, the 13 year old, the 30 year old, the 70 year old, everybody has equal opportunities to talk, give what their thoughts are, listen, participate, and you have one topic. So if you have the kind of family where people are super excited about this, everybody can kind of choose the topic the way they might choose, like what is for dinner on Wednesday. And if you have maybe a quieter or less excited about this crew, you could pick the topic. Usually if you pick something people are interested in, the content doesn't matter. It's the idea of shared conversation. Because eventually when you're in a shared conversation and you can't get distracted on the side with questions, quietly talking to somebody or looking at your phone or changing the subject, you do have something to contribute. Because we all, when we're forced to be listeners and thinkers, show up. And number 10, which is a little bit of an offshoot of number nine, encourage a wide set of perspectives. So let's say you are having a group discussion and you're talking about something political that everybody in the family agrees on. What I highly encourage, and I think we see in the world that this is quite missing, is encouraging appreciating different viewpoints and what the benefits are of having diverse ideas. So you might start with saying, you know, a lot of people, I know we've thought about this, but a lot of people have another perspective and I want to talk to you about it and share that perspective and ask like, so in that perspective, even if it's different from ours, what do you see as the benefit? And why do you think that perspective is the one shared by so many people? So it's not a judgment. And you know, we've talked on other episodes about how this isn't about not helping create shared values in your households. And it's not saying that every opinion is as equally right, but it is saying, let's listen and think about different perspectives so that we can be better community members in this world, so that we can not walk through the world thinking that the way we do it and the way we think about it is the only way. Because that's what gets us into trouble. And it is the absolute opposite of being good at collaboration and teamwork. And since this was 10 ways to encourage collaboration and teamwork, I wanted to end on encouraging diverse perspectives so that we can really think about what does that mean in the larger world. And it starts in our households, at our dinner table conversations. And it can be such a wonderful opportunity even for us to be forced almost intellectually to think about how can I explain to young people other perspectives when I haven't really thought about the perspectives of others or different viewpoints Because I live in a little bit of a bubble where I'm so certain of my values? It really helps and if that's too fraught or too difficult, think about just different perspectives on the way foods taste or different perspectives on how different people smell and enjoy the smell. Or don't you know, like some people might have a perfume on that's amazing and one of you loves it and the other is like, oh, this is too much. So think about any version of Diverse Perspectives. It doesn't have to be heated political debate. It can be as silly as, you know, do you prefer salty or sweet? If you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and do one of these 10 things sometime this week and let me know how it goes. You can always DM me on Instagram @Raising Good Humanspodcast or yep, that's the only way to reach me. I hope you're having a wonderful week.

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