More Notes on Positive Words

Some more things I'm learning about using positive language with children:

1) Use words to communicate unconditional love - my children must feel my love for them has nothing to do with their behavior, but for who they are..this may be hard when child is "acting up" but is even more necessary in these moments.

2) Yet...Praise effort. If my kids are only praised for results, especially if results are average, they will be afraid to try for more because they are afraid to lose their "spot."

3) Show empathy when a child is experiencing a consequence. This is hard because the child in us wants to say "I told you so," lecture him/her about choices, etc. But this only alienates the child and keeps them from drawing their own conclusions, cutting out a growing opportunity and closing off communication with parents later, because the child feels he/she will be lectured by the parent.

4) For me personally, lack of consistent rules hurts my positivity because my kids never know when I'm serious or not, and when I am serious, it takes extra verbal/mental effort to motivate them, which leads to frustration, which makes it hard to keep cool and use kind words (I'm going to work on discipline a different month)

Some parts of this resolution have been much harder for me than I anticipated. We had another night of sleeping in the tent before we put it away, and it was really sweet, snuggling and reading stories and singing songs before there wasn't any more light (my husband chose a good night's rest in lieu of the tent). (my three asked me to sing "Rainbow Dash In My Sight"-- I guess she made that up? ha ha.)

In the morning, with books to read still in the tent, it was hard motivating some kiddos to get up and help clean up. I caught myself about to say "No reading until we're picked up," (which of course isn't bad, it could just be phrased better!) and instead said "You can read when we're all picked up." For every time I remember and adjust my speech to be more positive, there are a few failures, especially in times of duress.