A national survey on American parents indicated that 69% would love to use positive parenting techniques to raise kids but they simply don’t know how. Indeed, it is even more welcoming news that over 80% of American parents (regardless of racial background) agree that new parenting skills can be learned. Sometimes, in an effort to correct your child, parents miss out on the essentials and lose sight of the ball altogether. Fortunately, the points below will provide some guidelines on how to do this successfully. Hopefully, you will find these helpful in setting your kids onto the path of adulthood.
Always pause before providing feedback
Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, you fail to give much thought to what you intend to say, only to end up harshly criticizing your child instead of providing feedback. It is the main reason you should pause to reflect on your words before commenting. Feedback is more of an art, and until you learn to master it, you may not utilize it appropriately. To get it right, you should first ask yourself if what you intend to say feels more like a complaint or your personal opinion.
Secondly, you should be sure that feedback is necessary for the moment. Moreover, since you know your child best, it would be helpful to ask yourself how they’d react to your feedback. After considering all these factors, you can then go ahead to speak with your child. Admittedly, sometimes emotions come into play, but as an adult, you should learn to rein them in.
Provide specific feedback
Four elements make up effective feedback, and they are: timely, meaningful, candid, and specific. The latter refers to giving feedback that is targeted at the action and not the child. In other words, you should individualize your response to an action. Generalizations can create ambiguity or unappreciation. For example, when the child in question does something right in providing feedback, comments like ‘good job’ may not be apt.
Instead, make a clear reference to the exact action you are commending. For instance, something along the lines of ‘helping me out with the dishes was an awesome thing you did will make a better impact than just saying, ‘good job.’ Expatiating on the good deed done automatically creates a user-friendly tone.
Another example is where your child develops an interest in reading by listening to audio books for kids. Again, be specific about their apparent progress. Say something like, ‘do you remember when you used to struggle with making out words? Now you can, and it’s impressive.’ This way, they will know how pleased you are and strive to do better.
Focus on actions and not personality in negative situations
According to child psychologists, when a child does something wrong, it is better to refer to their behavior and actions instead of attacking their personality. For instance, do not say, ‘you are very rude and disrespectful.’ Rather, say, ‘what you just uttered sounded rude, disrespectful and hurtful.’ The psychology behind this is to water down potentially heated emotions from both parties. Thankfully, the Situation-Behavior-Impact model developed by Harvard’s Center for Creative Leadership backs this feedback technique.
Feedback is a good thing as long as you master how to deliver it. The words you utter can break or make the child’s psyche. Therefore, put yourself in their shoes to help you find out if you will be happy with your words.
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