Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

We all know how important and encouraging it is to utter positive words towards others.

Especially towards little ones.

Now the question is, HOW have we been uttering our ‘words of encouragement’?

Like for example, when a two-year-old drinks without spilling, or a three-year-old brushes his own teeth, or when a five-year-old tidies up her toys after play … what do we say to them?

Do we tend to say,

“Good Job, Alex!”

“Well done, Sarah!”

“That’s great, Jack!”

“SO good of you! Thanks!”

…

I don’t know about you, but I do have a tendency to respond in such ways.

Immediate, positive and brief response.

Recently though I thought about my parenting approaches to such situations, and I felt a slight change is needed. For the better.

Here’s a thought.

When we say the above phrases to little ones (ie. without further explanations from time to time), we tend to focus on just ‘the child’ being ‘good’, but NOT on the positive IMPACT that results from the child’s action.

…

Let me explain using two examples:

Example 1: Anya helped and carried our ‘to-be-washed clothes’ to the laundry.

Instead of just saying, ‘Good job, Anya!’, she would better understand WHY what she just did was good IF I briefly explained the impact of what she has just done, ie. ‘Thanks for helping, Anya. Now the bathroom looks tidier and cleaner after you took the dirty laundry out’

…

Example 2: Vai proactively shared some of his cookies with his school friends.

Instead of just saying, ‘That’s good, Vai!’, it’d be a better approach if I added an extra sentence to let him know how others are affected by his action, like, ‘Oh, that’s nice of you to share, Vai! Look, your friend looked so happy when you offered and shared your biscuits with him!’

…

With the second approach, the focus is LESS on the child (being just good, … or bad), but MORE on the IMPACT that results from the child’s action.

Realistically, this approach may not always be applicable EVERY TIME, and we may still say things like, ‘Oh, that’s nice!’ or ‘It’s great that you’ve tried. Keep it up!’.

Which if you ask me, is totally fine, of course.

In the end, I think what’s most important is our realisation that WHAT we say to our little ones matter.

And, HOW we say them matter too.

When we engage them in a little conversation about what makes a family function smoothly, or how other people are affected by what we have done (or failed to do), these little ones gradually learn to realise how their actions, each and every single one, always have an impact on others.

And I truly believe that when we (consistently and frequently) verbally encourage our children in this way, it will gradually help them grow towards becoming more thoughtful people.