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ParentnestAuthor: Rosalind Smith Cross
A community for parents of young children to understand their child's growing body and mind, to provide knowledge, tools, and activities that will enrich your child and your relationship with them, and to support families in this wonderful and challenging stage of life. Language: en Genres: Kids & Family Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Word Choices: You Get What You Focus On
Episode 9
Wednesday, 6 October, 2021
Today we have a super short episode in which we’re going to think a bit about word choices. It has been said that we get what we focus on. So not only with this affect our child’s behavior, but it will also affect our view of their behavior! Principle #1: Say what you DO want instead of what you DON’T want“Don’t put that in your mouth.” “Don’t run.” “Don’t throw that.” It comes so easily, doesn’t it? But let’s think about your child’s take-away from these sentences. What is the last thing they hear? “Put that in your mouth.” “Run.” Throw that.” Their receptive language skills are in the early stages. It’s going to help your child (and you!) if you will simply state what you want. “We need to use walking feet right now.” “Hold the stick tightly in your hand so you can continue playing with it.” “That stays out of your mouth. You may _____ with it.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? It also helps us to save “No” for when we really need it. AffirmationsWe all want to affirm our children when they accomplish something, cooperate, share, etc. – and we definitely should! One of the goals of affirmation is to help our children feel competent and confident. Another motivation is so that they know that we support them – that we are on their team, and that we’ve noticed their accomplishment. So what do we usually say?I imagine most of us usually respond with, “Good job!”But perhaps there are phrases that would better encourage our children. My go-to response is “You did it!” How is that different? Well, for one thing, it’s affirming the action of the child. THEY accomplished something. If I say, “Good job,” that has more to do with my opinion of the action than with what they have done. Keeping the focus on what they have done can help our children find intrinsic value in their accomplishments. As your child gets older, you can flesh it out a bit: “You got bells for Katie today. That was kind.”“You cleaned up right away when I asked you to. That is hard to do when you’re having fun – but you did it!” See the difference?How would it change your parenting to frame things this way? I’d love to hear about it!
