Reinforcing Good Behavior
This morning after my children left for school, I walked into the bathroom and saw clothes all over the floor. Needless to say I was not impressed. Rebekah had forgotten (yet again) to pick up her clothes after her shower. I thought about picking them up for her, then decided that I would leave them for her to pick up later on that day.
I started thinking about how I was going to fix this problem. After all, Becky always left her clothes in the middle of the bathroom floor. It seems like no matter how many times I tell her she still forgets. It’s like she just doesn’t hear me.
Anyhow, I wandered to her bedroom and opened the door and guess what I saw? There was a bed beautifully made with no creases or crinkles in the blankets, the pillow was straight and perfectly arranged, there were dolls lined up on the pillow case in a neat fashion, there was absolutely nothing on the floor that shouldn’t have been there, toy boxes were neatly lined up in the corner. I couldn’t fault one single thing.
So I made a decision. When Becky came home from school instead of concentrating on the one thing she didn’t do right, I was going to compliment her on the other hundred or so things that she had done very right that morning. Do you see what I am getting at here? What do you think is going to have the best response from my daughter? Nagging about the one group of things she didn’t put away or complimenting her on the many other things she did do right that morning?
As parents we have choices to make about what we will come down on and what we will ignore. And to get the best behavior out of our kids we need to compliment much, much more than we ever growl at. Eighty percent of our interaction with our kids should be positive if we want to see our kids develop a healthy self esteem.
Becky is still at school but I can tell you what the response will be already. I bet you that by bed time tonight she will have found her pile of clothes in the bathroom and picked them up without any prompting from me. You see, this is the way kids work. You compliment them and they look for more ways to be extra helpful. Test it and see. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish simply choosing to ignore little things in order to praise the outstanding achievements.
