My mom gave me a book titled, “Children, The Challenge” a while back, and I have been slowly reading through it. According to her, it was the best book about raising children from her child-rearing days. I actually love reading it, and can certainly see some of the good things my mom got out of it, and put into practice. One thing my mom mastered, was encouraging all of us. I think she just has an encouraging nature, but this book really touches on the power of encouragement. It basically says that when you encourage, you allow your child to become capable of tackling life. Whereas, if you discourage, the child takes it as he/she isn’t capable of the task, and then that carries over into all tasks after years of discouragement. It can be a subtle as a child trying to make her bad. After they make it (and it is an OK job), you should just tell them it was a great effort, and then just leave it. Because if you say nice work, and then go and remake it, the child internalizes it as “I don’t do it well”. Or if a child bombs a test, rather than get on them about failing, you can bypass that bad grade, and encourage by saying, “I can see that you were really trying hard on your penmanship, and it looks nice”. Honestly, my mom would have definitely pointed out the bad grade, but then would have added the penmanship part. So, lately I have been trying to be more encouraging.
Okay — my problem is that when situations arise, I sometimes hesitate on whether or not I should encourage. For example, today Pippi got into the nail polish and glitter make up. She stayed in the bathroom (the rule with polish) and proceeded to paint her own nails and toes, and put a little glitter shadow on.
My gut reaction was to get really irritated that she was in the forbidden stuff. There could have been a disaster with her naughtiness. So was I supposed to encourage? Was I really supposed to tell her that she did a great job painting her nails and toes, and eyelids? I knew she knew she’d done something naughty, I could tell by her body language. But I tried the book’s words out. I said, “Wow Pippi! You did such a nice job of staying in the lines on your nails.” She looked up at me with her confused eyes, and said back, “I stayed ONLY in da baffwoom. And I put everything away. And I walked like dis…” (She walked on her heels with her toes in the air.) I told her that she was a big girl, and I was glad she followed the rules so carefully. And then I slyly and quickly went to check the bathroom. It was spotless. There was even a paper towel in the trash, that she had used under her. I was impressed, and then stuck the forbidden stuff in the far back of a pretty full drawer.
I’ll admit that Pippi definitely seemed empowered by my reaction. I’ll also admit that my reaction goes against my brain. But for today it worked…and I will happily accept that and read on.
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