Parenting Pearls

Have you ever really sat and thought about how you give positive feedback to your children? Or spouse? That was the topic of one of the most recent parenting classes - praise vs encouragement. I have never thought about the difference between the two, but turns out there is a rather large one! And praise can be much easier to give than encouragement.

Let's define both words: Praise is a reward, usually based on competition with use of superlatives, general compliments, and is focused on the accomplishment (or lack thereof) from an individual. It teaches the child that if she receives praise, she is of value. Without praise, she has no value. It's very much a stroking of the ego. Examples: "What a good girl you are for helping me." The unstated statment is that she is not a good girl if she dooes not help and has less "value." Same thing with being a "good boy for cleaning your room," "you are the prettiest girl in the class," and "I think you are the best mom ever."

Encouragement, on the other hand, focuses on the child's efforts without comparison to others. It uses specific compliments and is effort oriented, even if the effort is slight. The end product states that accomplishments are separate from feelings of self-worth, aimed at giving the child a sense of self-respect and self-confidence. She gave an example of a high school young woman who competed in the Miss Idaho pagaent. The girl did very well and was expected by her family to place well. Turns out, she did not even make the Top 10. Rather the complain, dive into a pity-party, this brave young woman was thrilled to have had the experience and felt good about the performance she gave, even though it didn't get her the crown. I was very impressed by that. Examples? "I appreciated your help today," "thank you for cleaning, it looks nice," or "you worked hard on your project." For those children who ar struggling, say something like "you seem to be having a hard time in school...why don't we sit and talk about it?". Encouragement makes you feel good inside. How many of you would feel warm and fuzzy if, on Mother's Day, your husband told you that you were the best mom ever? Um, not many. If, on the other hand, your husband told you that he loved watching you read to the kids before bed, would that create more feelings of self-worth? No, we are not perfect moms. With encouragement, we can feel good about the things we do well and keep trying on the rest.

As I left class, I found that it was difficult to distinguish between the two and that for me, it requires more effort to encourage. I have been working on being conscious and it has become easier.

Other tips for providing encouragement from her class notes: note your child's attributes and be specific, teach child that failure indicates lack of skill and does not effect the value of the person, express appreciation for even small efforts.

Word of caution - do not use encouragement to get what you as the parent want. "Your room is so clean! Why don't you keep it like this every day?" Jab, jab! It will backfire every time....

And our points to ponder:
>Use the language of encouragement and correct your mistakes in the moment to help yourself create a habit of encouraging (way to go, you do a good job of, you can help me by, beautiful work, terrific, etc)
>Learn your individual child's love language
>Have one-on-one talk time with each child - this is a time for you to listen and them to talk about anything, do some goal setting, etc. Not a time to chide
>Help your children set and acheive goals and work with them to make it happen

Taken for Granted No More

The last couple of months have seen Chadwick and I on a roller coaster of family planning - a ride of surprise, dismay, and thinking. Here are a few "stats" to sum up the experience:

^ Two lines on the at-home pregnancy test said we were pregnant mid-August!
^ One nap per afternoon to try and beat the exhaustion of the first tri-mester
^ An ultrasound at week 7 showed an amniotic sac, yolk sac, but no embryo (baby)
^ One week of tense waiting to see if there was positive development by week 8
^ Several tears as I found out the pregnancy was not developing properly, and was termed a spontaneous abortion-1 (SAB)
^ Two more weeks of waiting, feeling slightly pregnant and "off," and scheduling a d&c
^ Week 10 of "pregnancy" and I had the mis-carriage all by myself, without assistance (and no heavy-duty drugs, might I add, which was a painful few hours)

There are so many stories of unwanted pregnancies and women having two children 11 months apart that I forget that embryology is truly a delicate process! If nothing else, this experience made me stop and think about how amazing it is that so many of us form correctly on the first try. There is so much that needs to come together at a specific time and so many opportunities for things to go awry!

We didn't tell tons of people about the pregnancy, which was a relief since it didn't work out the way we had planned. I have felt so blessed through this process by the friends and family who were aware of the situation and have reached out in love and support.

Just another adventure in our journey into parenthood!