Third Take Away: PRAISE

          The final takeaway from this knowledge packed class was how to properly motivate my children and how to praise their effort versus praising their actions.  One of the ways I was able to learn ways that can improve motivating my children was through reading through a section of a book titled “Between Parent and Child.”  In this section of the book it states, “Certain patterns of relating to children are almost always self-defeating; not only do they fail to attain our long-term goals, but they often create havoc at home here and now. The self-defeating patterns include threats, bribes, promises, sarcasm, verbal overkill, sermons on lying and stealing, and rude teaching of politeness.” (Ginott, Ginott, & Goddard, 2004)

          This book covers so many important patterns that can be used to help us achieve our long-term goals for parenting our children. For me, one of my goals is for my children to be self-motivated.  There were these videos shared in class that helped to understand that one of the ways to motivate your children is to praise their effort and not their actions.  The video can be found here.  This video helped me to understand how important it is to praise my children based on their efforts.  This graphic sums it up pretty well:

          Something that was helpful to learn from my teacher this week was this comment: "When giving descriptive praise, make sure you specifically identify or describe the behavior you have observed and point out the child's accomplishments. When giving appreciative praise, make sure you specifically identify how the child's behavior positively affects another."  These are such helpful ways to understand how to praise my children and how to point out how their behavior is positively impacting what they are doing.  

          I have learned so much from these past few weeks.  I have loved everything that has been taught and I know that it has helped me to become a better mother and a better parent to my children. 

Ginott, H. G., Ginott, A., & Goddard, H. W. (2004). Between parent and child. New York: Random House.