The Secret Sauce Most Parents Are Missing
How many times have you had to correct your child for leaving their toys out? How often do you have to tell your teenager to be home on time? How tired are you at the end of the day after having to provide correction after correction? Reminding your child what to do all day long is exhausting, but I’m going to show you a simple technique you can start using to get the results you want. I’m not kidding, this is the secret sauce for parenting. Spend more time highlighting the right behavior so you can waste less time correcting the problem behavior. I’ve seen this technique work for the parents I train and I use it all the time with my own kids (and my husband).
You may be thinking, "that doesn't work. I've tried it." When you tried it, did you take data on your behavior by chance? How often did you actually reinforce? Research shows that our positive to corrective interactions should be at least 3:1, ideally 5:1. Plus, in circumstances where the relationship is particularly rocky, this ratio needs to get bumped up to 10 positive interactions for every corrective. However, many parents’ ratios are upside down, which means they are providing attention for problem behaviors 3 times as often as for the desired ones. This isn't the case because those parents are inherently negative, but rather because it's really hard to know your behavior without paying attention to the numbers.
You may also be thinking that praising your children is coddling them and not preparing them for real life. Some will even argue that praise ruins intrinsic motivation. I’m not buying it, neither is science nor the data.
For just a moment, consider your own life experience. If you never were told you were doing well, how would you feel about going to work every day? If you didn’t get feedback from your supervisor, how would you know what to keep doing or to change? What if your colleagues never gave you any positive feedback for your hard work? Or at home…if you are never thanked for all you do to keep the house running smoothly, to put food on the table, and to make sure everyone has clean clothes, you wouldn’t want to keep doing these things. That’s not coddling. It’s not ruining our intrinsic motivation to do our job. Positive feedback fuels your fire to keep doing those things.
Your child is wired the same way, so pay attention to your praise ratio and start seeing fast, long-lasting results. Get started on this over the next few days. You could record yourself to actually collect data, ask your partner/spouse to do it, or you could simply be intentional about giving more praise.
Spend more time reinforcing the good rather than punishing the bad!
PRACTICAL TIPS
Make the Praise Specific. “I like how you put your backpack away as soon as you got home.” Not only does this reinforce the behavior of the child you spoke to, but if you have other children in the room, they just learned how to get your attention (the right way).
Use Pivot Praise. Instead of focusing on individual corrections (“Johnny, remember to stay seated while you’re eating dinner."), focus on praising the individual behavior of their sibling(s), or using pivot praise ("I love how James is sitting in his seat and hasn’t gone up one time during dinner!”).
Catch Them Being Good. When you see your child engaging in the appropriate behaviors, be sure to provide them specific praise. This is especially important for children who are at risk or who often engage in problem behaviors. As parents, it’s easy to focus on all the problem behaviors that are occurring, but I promise if you look, you’ll find things to reinforce, even if they are small.
As for those times when you need to give corrective feedback? Do it quickly, calmly, and respectfully. Corrective feedback is an essential part of life and we ALL need it to grow and to learn; however, don't let this be your go-to. Use corrective feedback as a supplement to reinforcing appropriate behaviors. Next time you find yourself correcting your child, stop to think about what behaviors you are wanting to see and focus on those instead. The more they are engaging in the "good", the less time they have for the "bad".
Quick Next Steps: Make a list of the specific behaviors you would like to see increased. Once you know what behaviors you're going to target, start using specific praise, pivot praise, and do all you can to "catch them being good." Spread out your praise across all your children (if you have more than one), but be extra intentional about the child who has a history of being corrected frequently. Bonus step - keep track of the successes you see along the way. Seeing evidence of the progress you’ve made will help you keep your cool the next time you step barefoot on a Lego.
Small Changes. Big Gains!
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