The Magic Words "I Noticed"

Dear Kids,

Every morning that I get up and go to the gym I listen to lectures and personal improvement books for about 20 minutes before moving to music.

I've been listening to a lot of parenting lectures at this point, especially to help me with our homeschool efforts. The one I'm listening to right now is talking and teaching about self concept, and praise vs. encouragement.

I KNOW you all respond SO much better to encouragement rather than praise. Something Jim McVay said is, basically when you praise a child, you are passing a judgement on them. "Good job for sitting up in your seat!"... that's a judgement that if the child doesn't sit up in their seat then they are being a bad student. Which isn't true. There are surface praise phrases that are the lazy way out. General praise phrases will kill your ability to connect with the child every time.

Instead it was suggested to use encouragement phrases. He gave some magical words. He said, "Use 'I NOTICED' ... " and then notice something VERY specific about the child.

For example, I did this with Elijah a lot yesterday. It was amazing how he responded! Usually he shoves off praise phrases. He is building his self concept and he pushes away anything that doesn't coorelate with how he feels about himself. I said to him at one point, "You are such a hard worker!" and guess what he said?? "No I'm not!".

But, in another moment while we were working I said this, "I noticed that you really cleaned up those corners!" Then guess what happened? When he went to clean the shelf underneath he went for the corners first. And he cleaned it SO WELL.

I didn't pass a judgement based on his behavior. I simple NOTICED him. That is all he wanted. And because of noticing, he could decide how he felt about it. I didn't pass a judgement on how he SHOULD feel about it.

I did this throughout the day. "I noticed that you really spread the mayonnaise on that bread". Then the next time he made a sandwich he was more confident doing it on his own.

Listening to these parenting lectures is helping me to prepare for my day. It is helping me to put my armor on for the day. I'm not going into the battle thinking that there isn't a battle going on. I'm ready for it and I have my head wrapped around how best to handle things for the day.

I believe so strongly in getting up 2 hours before everyone else in order to sharpen my saw. I believe in it SO MUCH.

I love you kids,

Your Mom