In the Mom to Mom group I attend, we've been learning about using specific praise with our children. I have heard about the importance of this before, so it was not new to me. I had mostly only heard about this in regards to interacting with students, because, as you know, before I was a mom, I was a teacher.
With Burkley being so young, we hadn't much need for praise, much less specific praise. Our compliments to him mostly consisted of how cute he is and how much we love him and how awesome he is, etc. But, now that he is starting to make choices about his behavior, or accomplish new tasks, the compliments are more frequent.
"Thank you for listening" has been something we've found ourselves saying to him often. Early in our parenting, we had decided to try to shy away from phrases like, "Be a good boy," or "What a good boy!" seeing as how being "good" is subjective and also adds an unneeded pressure to childhood behavior. I remember feeling the pressure to be a "good girl" without reason for being good, other than wanting to be known as a "good girl." I don't remember if I put this pressure on myself or if I heard it from family or teachers.
Being "good" does not help Burkley earn our love, and so pressuring him to be "good" seems like it would be confusing and irrelevant. Besides, there is no one good, not even one.
My mentor mom (from Mom to Mom) gave my group the idea to compliment our children according to the Fruit of the Spirit. I thought this was a marvelous idea and promptly came home, told my husband about it, and we've put it into practice. The benefits, she said, would include the concept of specific praise, but more than that, getting our children familiar with the vocabulary and understanding of these Biblical behaviors.
In practice, I've found us saying things to Burkley like, "That was very kind when you..." or "Thank you for being gentle with ...." and "That showed excellent self-control when you..." as well as "I appreciate your patience with ..." ... you get the idea. I know that Burkley is not quite old enough to even understand what we're saying, but since when has that mattered? We've always talked to him as if he does understand, and we know that as far as language development goes, children understand much more than they can speak very early on. Complimenting according to the Fruit of the Spirit has also made my husband and I more mindful parents. We look for certain attributes more carefully, rather than giving a blanket statement of "Good job!" after each "good" thing Burkley does.
Of course this doesn't mean that we never use "Good job" because sometimes we truly do think it's a good job when he fits a puzzle piece together or stacks a few blocks. But even then we try to be specific in describing what pleased us, so that the idea is not presented that he is a good boy for simply stacking blocks -as if good boys stack them and bad boys tear them down. No, rather we are impressed that he knows how to stack blocks, so we might say something along those lines.
While we haven't had too many instances of discipline yet, as Burkley is still young and not making too many decisions we disagree with, I assume the same thought process can be applied to correcting and shaping our child into an individual who demonstrates the Fruit of the Spirit. Using phrases like, "That was not very kind when you ..." and things along those lines, help to point out to our children where they could improve their choices in the future.
Of course not all of our compliments to him fall under one of the Fruits of the Spirit, but you get the idea. What ideas do you have for being mindful of specific praise?
With Burkley being so young, we hadn't much need for praise, much less specific praise. Our compliments to him mostly consisted of how cute he is and how much we love him and how awesome he is, etc. But, now that he is starting to make choices about his behavior, or accomplish new tasks, the compliments are more frequent.
"Thank you for listening" has been something we've found ourselves saying to him often. Early in our parenting, we had decided to try to shy away from phrases like, "Be a good boy," or "What a good boy!" seeing as how being "good" is subjective and also adds an unneeded pressure to childhood behavior. I remember feeling the pressure to be a "good girl" without reason for being good, other than wanting to be known as a "good girl." I don't remember if I put this pressure on myself or if I heard it from family or teachers.
Being "good" does not help Burkley earn our love, and so pressuring him to be "good" seems like it would be confusing and irrelevant. Besides, there is no one good, not even one.
My mentor mom (from Mom to Mom) gave my group the idea to compliment our children according to the Fruit of the Spirit. I thought this was a marvelous idea and promptly came home, told my husband about it, and we've put it into practice. The benefits, she said, would include the concept of specific praise, but more than that, getting our children familiar with the vocabulary and understanding of these Biblical behaviors.
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| "Gently" playing with his cousin |
Of course this doesn't mean that we never use "Good job" because sometimes we truly do think it's a good job when he fits a puzzle piece together or stacks a few blocks. But even then we try to be specific in describing what pleased us, so that the idea is not presented that he is a good boy for simply stacking blocks -as if good boys stack them and bad boys tear them down. No, rather we are impressed that he knows how to stack blocks, so we might say something along those lines.
While we haven't had too many instances of discipline yet, as Burkley is still young and not making too many decisions we disagree with, I assume the same thought process can be applied to correcting and shaping our child into an individual who demonstrates the Fruit of the Spirit. Using phrases like, "That was not very kind when you ..." and things along those lines, help to point out to our children where they could improve their choices in the future.
Of course not all of our compliments to him fall under one of the Fruits of the Spirit, but you get the idea. What ideas do you have for being mindful of specific praise?
Great post! As you know, we don't use 'good girl' either, but use specific praise. I like what Denise said about using the Fruits of the Spirit! Maybe we've been doing some of that unknowingly - we talk about patients and gentleness a lot. We also talk about choices a lot, to teach them the difference between a good choice and a bad choice. I also liked what you said about Burk not quite understand the term self control, but using it anyway. It's very true - we all talk to our babes from the day they are born! And they probably have no idea what we're saying! But including that vocabulary at this point will only benefit him in the long run. Thanks for sharing!
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