Sometimes in the world of parenting life, it can seem like all we are doing is offering correction, discipline and trying to teach and educate our children. The focus can be on what is going wrong, whatever phases our child is going through, and all the challenges and un-fun realities that take a parent’s time. It can take some real effort sometimes to look at our child and find things that are going well…
With teenagers, there are definitely days when I have to look hard for behaviors and emerging personality traits that I’m thrilled about. Sometimes, I just have to find one or two things going on that I like and focus in on affirming and praising those things and let the rest of it go for a while. Even when my children were smaller, I would catch myself hating the sound of my own voice–nagging, critiquing and “parenting” and found when I dug around and exposed some of the things going on with my children that I liked, our interactions changed for the better.
It seems to be human nature to focus in on the things that we want to change and the things that are “going wrong.” And, it seems to be the parent’s nature to constantly be trying to do our job and guide and influence our children. But children respond quite well to a little praise and appreciation (actually, we all respond pretty well to praise and appreciation.) I’m not talking about blind and constant praise, but finding specific, personal and very valid things about our children we like and letting them know about it. After all, they deserve to hear the fabulous things we think about them too, since they probably hear plenty about the things we would like them to work on and change.
See Also: Whatever We Pay Attention To…Grows
Creating a Positive Home Environment