Most of us have a problem of focusing on the bad things our children do. I don't know if this is ingrained in our nature or the way our society is. I once heard that the average child hears more than ten negatives for every positive.
Recently on Facebook Laurie Bluedorn linked to a nice post on Notice The Good. In this post Rachel Stafford makes the point of the importance of noticing the good things her daughter does. This is true for all of us.
Glenn Latham writes extensively on this point in his book The
Power of Positive Parenting. He says that children will continue behavior that gets rewarded, and attention counts as a reward. So paradoxically when parents ignore good traits and fuss at bad traits the children may continue to do bad things because they are so hungry for attention from their parents.
So make the effort to notice the good things your children are doing today. They will appreciate the attention.
1 comment:
Very true! I know that this is one area where we lack as parents. Maybe it is that negativity is such a strong emotional response and naturally takes over. I know that for myself it is easier to be angry than happy. My 9 year asked me the other day "why is it so hard to be good?" I do agree and thanks for the reminder. Just focus on the good and we will get more of that! This applies to everything in life. We as humans tend to focus on the negative and then we wonder why we get more of it.
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