Praising your child for their positive decisions and behaviors can be the critical tool in the proverbial toolbox of behavior management and stopping negative behaviors, but figuring out how to get the most out of each praise without over-doing it or accidentally reinforcing the poor decisions can be tricky.
Here are 4 important tips for praising your children effectively that I use in my practice with young children and coach parents through using with their kiddos. Click here for tips on using praises with kids who have ADHD.
1. Remember that the praises you give your children are a type of reward.
Children WANT to please their parents. They want to gain your attention. It's a normal human need to feel appreciated, acknowledged, and valued. Just like bad publicity is better than no publicity for celebrities, any attention is better than no attention for children. They would rather get yelled at than ignored. At least they know you see them, hear them, and notice them. Keeping this in mind, positive reinforcement not only gives them the attention they need, but also gives them a feeling of having pleased the most important person in their little lives: YOU! Praises can be used to reinforce a good behavior the same as a sticker or a special treat. Catch them doing the right thing!!
2. Make the praise SPECIFIC to what they did.
While sometimes, all you can get in is a "good job," when you can, be super specific about why they are receiving the praise.
Rather than "good job," say "good job sitting calmly," "good job using your manners," "good job trying all of your food." The more specific the better. It helps your child to connect the action they did that earned them the praise with the positive feeling of you being proud of them.
3. Make the praise about what they are DOING rather than who they are.
In studies, children who were praised for their effort where more likely to take on challenging tasks than children who were praised for a personal quality. For instance, the children in the study were doing a challenging math task and they had a choice about whether to keep trying harder problems. Kids who were told, "you're so smart" after getting a problem right were less likely to keep trying as the problems got harder. The kids who kept trying were given praises like, "I like the way you took the time to think through that," and "I like the way you kept trying event though it was hard. Those types of praises highlighted to the child that it wasn't just their smarts that helped them, it was the ACTIONS they took that made the difference in their success. You can't change how smart you are, but you can change your behavior; so their good choices being reinforced was more encouraging. It gave them an idea of what you they could DO to keep succeeding. You can use this same concept with positive behavior.
Rather than, "you're such a good boy," say "you're doing a good job of following the directions" or "I can tell you're working very hard...good work."
4. Use praise to steer negative behavior towards positive choices.
Your child is engaging in a negative behavior that's annoying you or is inappropriate. It's not unsafe, aggressive, or destructive, which would require more immediate attention. it's just something you'd rather them not do or you've already asked them to do something different and they aren't changing their behavior.
What to do? You actively ignore them until the behavior stops, which will be covered in a future blog post. BUT, just as soon as the behavior shifts and they finally come around to the right decision, give them a specific, action-focused praise (following the steps listed above) for their positive decision... EVEN THOUGH you may be super annoyed by then and really just want to scream deep down. Again, your child is likely looking for attention with that inappropriate behavior, so you are denying them any attention for the negative behavior, which requires them to shift to a positive choice in order to gain the acknowledgement they were wanting.
The good new is that these types of praise don't only serve to reinforce positive behavior, but they also help to build self-esteem, because you are regularly highlighting to your child how they ARE CAPABLE of achieving things, making good choices, and earning rewards.
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