How to encourage a child

Ways to encourage a child

The purpose to encourage a child is to boost his self esteem. Remember, this boost should come from within the child’s heart for himself. We don’t have to do it for him. We only need to describe some good thing about him which he believes to be genuine and praises himself for it, based on our description. This way he himself is boosting his self esteem and genuinely feels happy about it, which produces the desired results.

Daily encouragement conditions the child for success. We only need to stimulate him to praise himself.

We can neutralize our praise by criticizing next day. But describing a good thing which stimulates child mind to praise himself becomes permanent in child’s mind and helps him boost his self esteem permanently.

If our praise does not stimulate the child to praise himself, something is wrong with our praise. We need to learn some tips on ‘How to praise kids’.

Here is how to encourage a child to praise himself:

•     Don’t waste time
•     Praise and encourage a child for efforts, not his natural talent
•     Be genuine
•     Don’t be vague: Be specific and descriptive to encourage a child
•     Don’t expect perfection : Praise slightest improvement
•     Don’t relate it to success
•     Don’t make comparative praise
•     Mixing praise and criticism
•     Do it publicly if possible
•     Avoid negative emotions
•     Soften your voice tone
•     Mind your body language
•     Don’t repeat yourself over and over again
•     Don’t over-encourage a child
•     Don’t drag previous errors in it
•     Don’t be in a hurry to finish it
•     Don’t forget the general rules of 'effective communication with children’

1. Don’t waste time

Catch him red-handed doing something right, and encourage a child right then and there. Do it immediately and spontaneously. Don’t waste any time. If you miss this opportunity and get late in praising, the effect of praise will be diluted. He’ll think the praise is an after-thought. Your praise will not register in his mind.


2. Praise and encourage a child for efforts, not his natural talent

The revolutionary research by psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that praising a natural talent does more harm than good to a child. Instead, praise and encourage a child for his efforts and works. This is so important and interesting that I can’t sum it up in four lines. Click here to read a full page on this. Don’t miss it!


3. Be genuine

Be genuine, sincere and honest. Do not exaggerate. Do not flatter. Flattery is cheap, insincere, selfish and shallow. Your praise shouldn’t be fake or artificial, otherwise it would backfire. It won’t help your child. Very soon he’ll sense your insincerity, and then he’ll suspect each one of your praise for him on any occasion after that. You loose your credibility. Your praise is not genuine if:

•     It is selfish and gives the impression that you are praising to get something done.
•     Creates an undue pressure in child’s mind about maintaining the praised behavior.
•     Tries to cover up child’s weakness.

4. Don’t be vague: Be specific and descriptive to encourage a child

Don't try to encourage a child with common comments like ‘good boy’, ‘great work done’ etc. These are general praises. General praises are vague. Vague praises don’t send a clear message as to what is being praised. Their brain doesn’t take these praises seriously and tends to forget them soon.

Passing general comments like ‘good’, ‘great’ ‘wonderful’ etc is easy. Describing is a bit difficult, because you have to actually apply yourself to look deeply in what the child has done and what are the things which are good enough to describe. But it is worth the efforts. Description makes praise sincere and genuine.

Always be specific. Take a little pain of observing the child’s work, behavior or performance, and then specify clearly what you see or feel good about it.

For example, if you want to praise his handwriting, don’t just say “beautiful”. Find out and describe which letters has he written very nicely. Tell him “we appreciate you for the neatness … the flow of words … the slant of letters …” and find more good things.

Instead of saying “you dance well”, praise dancing steps that you liked. Once started, you’ll find so many things to describe.

This way, the child will find exactly what is good about him. He will believe you and tell himself, “They appreciate me for the right thing”, and praise himself.


5. Don’t expect perfection: Praise slightest improvement

If you are satisfied with nothing short of perfection, you are bound to face a lot of frustration. We as grown ups are not perfect. How can we expect our kids to be? Kids have nothing to do with perfection. Whatever good they may do is bonus for us.

Therefore, don’t expect perfection. Keep your expectation at a reasonable level. Appreciate slightest improvement in child’s behavior. Even in mistakes and accidents, appreciate your child for whatever he could save or whatever precautions he took, if any.


6. Don’t relate it to success

If we praise the child for his success only, we’ll loose so many precious occasions to praise him. Events of success are only a few. Don’t relate your praise to success. Praise and encourage a child for his efforts, irrespective of the results.

Success might come and go. But the experiences earned by the child in the process of putting in efforts are permanent lessons for the child. Keep giving him the gifts of encouragement for his efforts even if he doesn’t succeed.


7. Don’t make comparative praise

Praise a child for his efforts. Not for being better than any other child. Don’t compare him with some other child while praising. Every child his a different mind, experience and background. Every child is unique. Encourage children to promote their own individuality.


8. Mixing praise and criticism

If you praise your child and then start criticizing him saying how he could have done it better, you are suggesting the child that he wasn’t good enough. You are mixing praise and criticism. The child will forget the praise and remember his criticism. Is it what you want?

If you desperately want to mix limited amount of criticism with praise, here is how to do it.


9. Do it publicly if possible

Everybody likes public praise. Therefore, praise and encourage a child in public if you have something significant to tell people about him. Let children overhear you say something positive about them.

But don’t publicly praise minor improvement very frequently, because the child wouldn’t like people to know about each of his activity. The child needs his own privacy.


10. Avoid negative emotions

Don’t express the praise through any negative emotions like anger, hatred, sarcasm or things like that. The emotions speak louder than words. Even if you are using best chosen positive words but load them with negative emotions, the words are ignored and emotions get registered in the child’s mind. The praise looks sarcastic and insulting and ceases to be a positive encouragement.


11. Soften your voice tone

Your voice tone also reflects emotions. How you speak is much more important than what you speak. A simple word ‘Thanks’ can be spoken most politely as well as in grave anger. In both the situation the same word conveys altogether different messages. Use only positive words of encouragement and speak them with feeling and sincerity.


12. Mind your body language

Remember! Most of your emotions are reflected through your body language. So mind your body language. Straighten the skin folds on your forehead, relax your facial muscles, eye-brows, and other body muscles. Come close to the child, smile and look into his eyes. Pat on his back or give him a hug, or touch him affectionately. It adds deep emotional touch and great emotional value to your praise.


13. Don’t repeat yourself over and over again

Resist the feeling of repeating the same praising words over and over again in the same session. Saying one thing once in proper manner sends the message across. If you’ve not said it in a proper manner, it won’t serve the purpose even if you may repeat it ten more times. On the contrary, repetition arouses discomfort and suspicion in the child’s heart.


14. Don’t over-praise and over-encourage a child

Everything has a limit. You’ll loose the effect of your words by overdoing it. If you show over enthusiasm about it, the child feels pressurized. He thinks, “what if I couldn’t do it next time?” Behave reasonably.

And don’t praise any activity which you don’t want him to repeat. For example, if you praise your child’s running speed in a store, you are encouraging him to keep running in every store he visits.


15. Don’t drag previous errors in it

Never relate the praise to any previous unpleasant event. For example, if you say “I thought you’ll do it as bad as last time but you did better”. This is praise for a recent good performance, but you have finished your praise by relating it to a previous failure.

Instead, you can say, “you have really worked hard to improve your performance.” Dragging a previous error will make it a mess. You will lose the focus of improving the behavior and arguments on unnecessary things would start.

The child will come in battle mode and start defending his stand for the previous events. Very soon you will find yourself beating about the bush.


16. Don’t be in a hurry to finish it

If you are in a hurry to finish praising your child, he suspects your sincerity and thinks that you are doing it just for the sake of doing it. He ignores your praise and gets alert when ever you praise him next, even if you are genuine next time. So encourage a child in a subtle way.


17. General rules of ‘Parent child communication’

The general rules of ‘Effective communication with children’ apply on every interaction of the parents with their kids. These rules set the basic stage on which every activity involving interaction between parents and children happens. So, don’t forget them at all. Add on these rules with them.

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Add vs Adhd

Tabulated differences between Add and Adhd (Add vs Adhd)

In common parlance Add and Ahhd mean one and the same thing. But if a child has attention problem, the parents must understand the difference between the two. Add (Attention deficit deficiency) may occur with and without hyperactivity. If it occurs with hyperactivity, it is 'Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder'.

For our discussion here, ADD refers to Attention Deficit Disorder without hyperactivity. There are numerous differences between the two disorders. Here is a tabulated account of Add vs Adhd:

ADD Vs ADHD

ADD (Without Hyperactivity)	ADHD (With Hyperactivity)
Weaker Parietal Lobe of brain	Weaker Frontal Lobe of brain
Patient	Impulsive, want instant gratification
Fearful and anxious	Daring, crave for excitement
Mentally restless	Physically Hyperactive
Avoid physical activities	Love physical activities
Sensitive and fragile	Rough and tough
Think Logically	Think emotionally
Daydreamer	Not daydreamer
Introvert	Extrovert
Co-operative and Sensitive to others	Don’t care about people
Tolerant	Intolerant
Don’t express their feelings	Over expressive and over reactive
Flexible thinkers	Rigid thinkers
Lie only to please others	Impulsive liar, Lie without any reason and fear
Low risk of criminal activity	Very High risk of Criminal activity

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Diagnosis & Symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

Diagnosis of attention deficit disorder

There is no physical test to identify such kids. No blood test, no lab test. No X-ray or scanning can detect it. The child looks normal in physical appearance. There are, however, certain symptoms that suggest that the child has ADD. These symptoms are to be noticed in the behavior of the child. The degree and effect of the symptoms may vary from child to child.

To diagnose a child with ADD:

• The symptoms must appear before seven years of age and persist at least for six months.
• The symptoms create noticeable problem in at least more than two settings and situations. Such as school, playground, home, party etc.
• The possibility of other behavioral disorder should be carefully ruled out for right diagnosis of ADD.

It is a little difficult to identify ADD kids because they do not create any disturbance to anybody. They are inattentive, passive, quiet and cooperative.

Rule out any other similar looking behaviors first. There are many behaviors that mimic ADD.

ADD-inattentive type does not involve hyperactivity, which is a key symptom of children suffering from ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’ or ADHD. ADHD is very much different from ADD.

Symptoms

• Concentration is the major problem with these kids. They can’t hold their attention on any thing for more than a little while. Anything means anything … except those activities in which the child has special interest. It may be any thing said or even shown. It may be studies, game, conversation etc.
• They are less attentive to important things, such as teachers' instructions; but more attentive to less important things, such as room temperature, sweating, sound of a fan, air-conditioner, chirping of birds outside etc.
• Very sensitive to smell. They easily get distracted by smells.
• Very sensitive to physical touch sensations such as the feeling of shirt’s tag against their skin etc.
• Don’t like things which require continuous attention or mental effort, such as schoolwork or homework.
• They are either very impulsive or difficult to satisfy easily.
• Nothing seems to make them happy except a few things in which they are really interested.
• Easily get bored with things.
• Start many things but leave most of them incomplete. They keep shifting from one thing to another without completing any of them.
• Find it difficult to complete the home work, school work or chores.
• Seem to be unmotivated to finish a job.
• Find it difficult to maintain long term relation with their friends, classmates etc.
• Often lost in their own imaginations and daydreaming.
• Appear confused, lost in thought, preoccupied or may seem to be drowsy.
• Sometimes they do not seem to listen when we talk to them directly.
• Working pace is usually very slow than their peers. They don’t seem to have a good idea of ‘time’.
• Might find it difficult to catch a ball thrown at them directly.
• Easily forget important words, phrases, rhymes, daily activities etc. If you ask them what happened in the English class … they find it difficult to recollect and answer immediately.
• Most of the times, they fail to understand the instructions clearly. If they do, they find it difficult to follow.
• Easily feel overburdened with not so much information given in a chapter, books, copies, class-work, home-work, multiple and complicated instructions.
• Organizing things and activities is a difficult task.
• Difficulty in arranging their school bags. They usually forget to keep their belongings with them and easily loose them.
• Making careless mistakes very often.
• Infants and toddlers with ADD are crying all the time without any significant reason and are difficult to be soothed. They are fussy eaters, very sensitive to touch, usually have to be taken to doctor more often than their peers. They have very frequent infections and colics. They have lots of sleep disturbances.

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The Gift of ADD

Recognize the gift of ADD

The words ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ indicate that it is some serious sort of mental disorder. This word takes our attention to the darkest side of such kids. I think it is not fair. This nomenclature needs to be changed. I don’t know why kids like this are called suffering from some disorder. Kids like this are amazing in some other ways. They have lots of rare positive qualities. They are raw material for geniuses. And that's the gift of ADD.

Not all such kids have all these positive qualities but usually you will find many of the following genius qualities in such kids:

• Likes to take risks
• Loves thrills
• Enthusiastic
• Passionate
• Warm hearted
• Creative
• Interesting and humorous
• Intuitive
• Forgiving
• Constantly tries for improvement
• Lateral thinkers
• Holistic thinking mind
• Looks at the big picture of things and situations
• Charismatic

Garret LoPorto, a father of ADHD child, and author of DaVinci Method finds a LeoNardo DaVinci in every ADD/ADHD child. He has exhaustively dealt with the gift of ADD/ADHD kids, most sussessful people in the world with ADHD, how does ADHD brain works differently, how to utilize the ADHD gifts for best performance, and much more.

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD

ADHD is a sub-type of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). It is different from 'Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) inattentive type'. Click here to find out how.

Symptoms

•     Easily distracted
•     Difficulty paying attention
•     Impulsive
•     ADHD kid boy   
•     Hyperactive, physically restless
•     difficulty remaining seated
•     Difficulty waiting their turn
•     Blurting out answers
•     Doesn't obey instructions
•     Shifts from one uncompleted activity to another
•     Fidgeting
•     Can't play quietly
•     Talks excessively, doesn't listen
•     Keeps interrupting in conversation
•     Often loses things
•     Makes a decision instantly without thinking about consequences
•     Impulsive buying
•     Acts and speaks without thinking
•     Replies before completing the question
•     Jumps to conclusions before checking details
•     Making false assumptions
•     Making rapid decisions or to act quickly in a case of emergency.

More articles you can read:

ADHD disorder or difference

ADHD and young children: Unlocking the secrets to good behavior

Diagnosis for ADHD, ODD, LD: What does a diagnosis means for your child

How girls with ADHD go undetected, and why the correct diagnosis is important for girls and boys alike.

How to stop arguing and start talking with your adhd child 

Read more »

How to criticize

Researches across the globe have conclusively proved that people learn far more effectively when they are rewarded for good behavior, than when they are criticized and punished for bad behavior.

Criticizing is easy. It can be done thoughtlessly and effortlessly. Any fool can criticize. But restraining ourselves from doing it is pretty difficult. You need to have a lot of self control, patience, compassion and forgiving attitude.

But it’s worth it! It puts in lots of strength and sweetness in the relationship and also develops child discipline by improving his behavior.

However, sometimes we desperately need to criticize, either for our personal impatience or intolerance or for some other reasons. If it is so, it is better to do it with some tips of the art of criticism. Here is how to criticize your child so that it doesn’t hurt him and serves your purpose:

•     Wait … hold on for a while
•     Don’t jump on conclusions: Be generous
•     Collect facts before starting
•     How to begin
•     How to point out mistakes after praise
•     Point out their mistake indirectly
•     Refer to your own mistakes
•     Use suggestive approach
•     No personal attack
•     Don't make it a public show
•     Watch your words
•     Avoid negative emotions
•     Soften your voice tone
•     Mind your body language
•     Don’t repeat yourself over and over again
•     Don’t make an issue out of it
•     Don’t drag history in it
•     Focus on one topic at a time
•     Point out important mistakes only
•     Don’t overload the child with it
•     Don’t forget the general rules of ‘Parent child communication’
•     Finish it as early as possible

1. Wait … hold on for a while

If you desperately feel like criticizing your child, wait a minute… hold on … manage your anger for a while. Let this moment pass away. A little while later, you would be somewhat cool and look at the things more rationally and understand the situation better.

If you can let this moment pass away, most of the damage that criticism does would be avoided. I’m sure you would be a different person after 10 minutes to react on the same fault of your child.


2. Don’t jump on conclusions: Be generous

We always tend to jump on conclusions and judge others spontaneously. Instead of understanding the whole situation we pass our judgment on the basis of what we hear from people around us. We immediately say, he’s right’ or ‘he’s wrong’.

Show some generosity. Don’t be in a hurry to judge your kids, and if you do, don’t judge them so harshly … be liberal in your judgment, if at all the need be.


3. Collect facts before starting

Make sure you find out why your child did what he did before you start your session. May be there was no fault on his part. May be you are firing your elder son for the fault of the younger son.

There could be anything… just check it out. There is no point in collecting facts after criticism is made.


4. How to begin

Begin the conversation with a pleasant note. It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after listening to pleasant things. Having some sugar before taking a bitter medicine always make it easier to tolerate the bitter taste of the medicine.

Begin your criticism with some sincere praise on some positive aspect related to the subject which you want to criticize. Find something positive related to the subject of conversation and praise the child about it and do it liberally and generously. Then slowly come to the criticizing part.

No criticism should precede praise or you’ll lose the effect of praise as well. Spend more time in praise and little time in criticisms.

A word of caution: insincere praise will do more harm than good. Children can easily assess the sincerity we put in our praise. So better we do it sincerely so that he can accept criticism as well.


5. How to point out mistakes after praise

Praise the child for something good about him. Then use the word and and express your criticism in a gentle manner. This will nicely make a flow of the praise into a gentle criticism without sounding harsh and odd. For example:

John, studying in second grade, got ‘B’ in the Maths test and ‘A’ grade in English. Let’s see how his mother praises him for English and then constructively criticises him for Maths. Notice how she joins criticism after praise using the word ‘and’:

Mom: Got an ‘A’ in English! That’s very good! That shows how hard did you work for English, and if you work a little harder in Maths, you could get an ‘A’ in Maths as well.

This makes the criticism subtle. The child can digest it because his self esteem is not hurt. He is delighted with his praise first. The second statement does not hurt him.

A word of caution: Never use but in place of And.

Let’s understand it using the John’s example using ‘but’ in place of ‘and’.

Mom: Got an ‘A’ in English! That’s very good! That shows how hard did you work for English, but if you work a little harder in Maths, you could get an ‘A’ in Maths as well.

‘But’ is a negative word. It emits suspicion. The child now suspects the genuineness of your praise itself. This will switch off his receptive mode. He will suspect a hidden threat and sarcasm in your praise and criticism. You’ll loose your credibility.


6. Point out their mistake indirectly

Never criticise your kids directly or bluntly. Never say, ‘you are wrong’, or ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’ or something like that. This is potential negative criticism, and would certainly arouse resentment and contempt in the child. He’ll react to criticism in an aggressive manner. Criticize him indirectly, tactfully and gently.


7. Refer to your own mistakes

Remember and talk about your own mistakes before finding faults in your child. You are at least two decades older than your kids. You have seen the world by going through day-to-day struggle. You have seen and experienced childhood, teenage, adulthood, school, college, clubs, job, business, marriage and much more.

But the child is only a few years old. He has not seen all this. He is justified in making many mistakes. And what were you at his age? I am very sure I made several times more mistakes than my son at my son’s age. My son is much smarter and these days all kids are much smarter than we were at their age.

So when ever you want to point out their mistakes don’t forget to mention that you also made that kind of mistakes or worse at his age. Tell him how you were criticized and what mistakes you made in learning ‘how to deal with criticism’. Then you can gently guide him to the correction. Your self criticism will make the child listen to you with open mind.


8. Use suggestive approach

Use suggestive sentences like, ‘Let’s see how we can improve it ….’, ‘Let’s see how you can do it in an easier way’, ‘Let’s brainstorm together’. This makes the atmosphere pleasant and the child would be in the mode of accepting criticism. While making suggestions, you can gently take his attention to the area that you want to criticize and do it subtly.


9. No personal attack

Remember, you have to criticize a negative behavior of the child, and not the ‘person’ of the child. Don’t make personal criticism. Don’t use ‘you’ too often. Don’t declare him ‘fool’, ‘stupid’ etc. These are personal attacks. Get into your child’s shoes and walk in his shoes before criticizing him. Treat him the way you would like to be treated in his situation. Have some respect for him. Try to help him in the difficult task of dealing with criticism by being friendly to him.


10. Don't make it a public show

Do not ever criticize a child in front of any one … do it in the closed room if it is desperately necessary. Public criticism means insult in front of friends, relatives and others. Criticism already inflects injury on the child. Why add insult to the injury?


11. Watch your words

Don’t use words which let them down, like ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’, ‘fool’. Don’t use the words which smell like dictates, commands, orders and judgments. Don’t use sentences like, ‘You must understand…’, ‘I want you to do this…’. These words turn an otherwise cool discussion in a battlefield, because these words trigger the defense mechanism in the child.


12. Avoid negative emotions

Our sole purpose to criticize our kids is to improve them, not to insult or disgrace them. So don’t express the criticism through any negative emotions like anger, hatred, sarcasm or things like that. These emotions let them down and make them feel insulted. Their self-esteem is hurt and criticism ceases to be a constructive criticism. It turns into a destructive criticism.


13. Soften your voice tone

Your voice tone also reflects emotions. How you speak is much more important than what you speak. A simple word ‘Thanks’ can be spoken most politely as well as in grave anger. In both the situation the same word conveys altogether different messages. Criticism must be done only in a mature, friendly, graceful and polite manner. This will help the child in accepting constructive criticism.


14. Mind your body language

Remember most of your emotions are reflected through your body language. So mind your body language. Straighten the skin folds on your fore head, relax your facial muscles, eye-brows, and other body muscles. If you find it difficult to control your body language, try to smile before and during the conversation. Smile tends to relax the tension and emits positive vibration, which calms down the temperature of the situation. Help him in handling criticism.


15. Don’t repeat yourself over and over again

Resist the feeling of repeating the same criticizing words over and over again in the same session. Saying one thing once in proper manner sends the message across. If you’ve not said it in a proper manner, it won’t serve the purpose even if you may repeat it ten more times. On the contrary, repetition arouses resentment and contempt in the child’s heart.


16. Don’t make an issue out of it

Don’t dramatize and make a scene out of it. It’s not the end of the world. Most mistakes can be corrected. Keep this in low profile and make the mistake seem easy to correct. This will relieve the child of the heaviness on his heart caused by the feeling of guild of making a mistake. Try to wind it up as early as possible and forget it after that. Don’t discuss this event ever in future as reference or historical record while making a new criticism.


17. Don’t drag history in it

Never drag any previous event into the current session. Dragging a previous error will make it a mess. You will lose the focus of improving the behavior and arguments on unnecessary things would start. The child will come in battle mode and start defending his stand for the previous events. Very soon you will find yourself beating about the bush.


18. Focus on one topic at a time

If you are criticizing your kid for one fault, focus on that only, don’t drag any other topic in the conversation or you’ll lose your focus. Concentrate on one useful criticism at a time. Dragging more topics will dilute the message you want to give to your child. Too many issues will defeat each other.


19. Point out important mistakes only

Avoid criticism of trifles. Don’t show your child that your eyes are X-ray machine and the child can’t escape doing any mistake. Nobody likes to be under surveillance at all times. Forgive their petty mistakes. Constant criticism creates serious problems.

If you criticise them for every small mistake they won’t take you seriously. You will be branded as ‘over critical’ or ‘over sensitive’. Very soon kids will loose their sensitivity to criticism and get immune to what you criticize, and instead of learning how to handle criticism, they will learn how to ignore it.


20. Don’t overload the child with it
Everything has an upper and lower limit. Some children are very sensitive to criticism while others are not as much. Measure your child’s limits to tolerate criticism. Keep your limits to the minimum. Avoid severe criticism.

Even if you are dealing with a hardened kid, don’t criticize beyond the minimum dose required. Intense criticism can depress the child. Minor criticism is always safe. The main food for your kid’s behavior is encouragement. Constructive criticisms are only medicines. Medicines are always given in small doses.


21. Don’t forget the general rules of 'effective communication with children'

The general rules of effective communication with children apply on every interaction of the parents with the kids. These rules set the basic stage on which every activity involving interaction between parents and children happens. So, don’t forget them at all. Add on these rules with them.


22. Finish it as early as possible

Remember when your parents used to criticize you? I remember that. Every minute used to pass like a full day. I would anxiously wait for the session to come to an end. Even now if someone criticizes us, we want it to finish at once. Remember: your child is not having fun being criticized. So, finish it as early as possible.

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Constructive criticism

Criticism and Child Discipline

Knowingly or unknowingly, each one of us criticises our kids on a daily basis all the hours they’re awake. Every now and then we find some new criticism to make. Easily and effortlessly.

Why?

Because if we don’t tell them what mistakes they are making, they'll never correct their mistakes. That’s right! Very right! So criticism is necessary to improve child behavior.

But have you watched your words when you criticize your kids?

You think you are improving them by finding their faults and criticizing them. But what do the kids think? How do they feel? And do they really improve by our doing this? Let’s explore criticism and see how it affects kids…!!!


Criticisms

‘To err is Human’.

We're all human beings...run more by emotions than logic, and therefore keep making mistakes every now and then.

Nobody wants to make a mistake. They just happen. And we never criticize ourselves for them, no matter what blunder we may commit.

But when someone else makes a mistake, we jump out of our soul to criticize him. We want to be the first to criticize that person, as if we were to win a gold medal for that.

Without going into the facts, we pass our own judgment holding that person guilty and expect him to give a written confession for what he did.

We are all alike … including kids.

Rather kids have more difficulty in handling criticism because they know nothing about dealing with criticism. They don’t understand how to handle criticism. They’ve never read an essay on criticism. You might have.

Anatomy of Criticism

In dealing with people, the most lovable things to us are our self esteem, ego and feelings. Everything else comes next.

Criticism directly attacks our self-esteem, ego and feelings, and does something what atom bombs did to Hiroshima-Nagasaki in World War-II.

We employ everything at our command to protect our shattering ego.

How do we do it?

We make a China wall around ourselves. This wall serves many purposes. It closes our mind to the attacking criticism. The mind gets into alert and offensive mode.

The words and sounds of criticism fall on our ears but our mind rejects them out rightly.

Then our mind sets up best available guns and canons on the top of this china wall, and loads them with all the available logics, facts and figures, howsoever baseless, vague, misconceived or prejudiced they might be.

Yes, the firing starts.

Whom do we fire at? Of Course, the one who attacked us, and everyone who comes in the way. We start contradicting the criticism with our full potential with all kind of justifications … mostly prejudiced.

We blame the one who criticizes us and everyone whom we can shift the blame on. To prove ourselves right, we spare no one whom we can blame.

Nobody likes self criticism. We are all alike … including kids.


Effects of Criticism

Criticism hurts and shatters our ego, poisons our emotions and enthusiasm and demoralizes us.

It is dangerous. It is lethal, which is why nobody likes it.

And the worse part is, it defeats its own purpose very much. Not only it fails to correct the child behavior, it also arouses hatred in the heart of the child against us. Ultimately, things get messed up more than before. No criticism can improve child behavior like that.

Criticism is futile!


Complain, condemn, ridicule, scold, shouting, humiliation and insult

More deadly species of criticism are ‘complaining’, ‘condemning’, ‘ridiculing’, ‘scolding’, ‘shouting, ‘humiliation’ and ‘insult’. The damage they do to the victim is many times what criticism does. We cause extreme insult and humiliation to our kids when we shout or pass ridiculous comments complaining and condemning our kids.

No one likes to be ridiculed. We are all alike … including kids.

If you scold your child he’ll certainly condemn you ... in your presence or absence. He’ll defend and justify himself, and tell himself, ‘Papa doesn’t understand me ... he is a bad man… I hate him… he knows scolding only. I’ll be happy if someone scolds him as well. I’m not going to listen to him any more.’

So if you think you can improve your kids behavior by criticizing, complaining, condemning, ridiculing or scolding …. think again.

It is foolish to scold.


Don’t criticize them

As I said earlier, nobody wants to make a mistake. They just happen. More so with kids. It is only experience which teaches us how to avoid mistakes.

Kids have life experience of only a few years. They are more likely to make mistakes. We’ve made similar or worse mistakes at their age.

These days kids are smarter. I’m sure I made more mistakes when I was my son’s age, than my son does today.

Don’t criticize them. They are just what we were in their age under similar circumstances.


Constructive criticism vs. destructive criticism

We have explored that criticism is bad. But how do we improve child behavior without criticizing the child's mistakes.

We can do that by making some changes in the words, gestures, ways and manners by which we criticize the kids.

If we can criticize the children without hurting their self esteem, ego and feeling, we can improve their behavior.

That’s Constructive criticism.

Constructive criticisms or positive criticism gets more effective if it is coupled with the art of criticism.

There are lots of ways to do that. Want to explore? Here’s how to criticise your child in a constructive manner.

Every criticism which is not a constructive criticism is a destructive criticism or negative criticism. Destructive criticism is rash, insincere and lacks generosity.

If you are criticizing you child and she’s not improving, your criticism is destroying her personality, and it’s destructive criticism.



Constructive criticism:

•     Aims at improving the child behavior.
•     focuses on child's behavior, not on her or his person.
•     Is genuine, without any prejudices.
•     Is sincere and generous.
•     Makes the children ready for accepting criticism.
•     Is far more helpful than a blunt criticism of the child’s faults.
•     Helps kids identify their weaknesses and work on them.
•     Allows the child to make decisions.
•     Is not mere rhetorical criticism.
•     Gives real message to the child that you truly want him to improve.

Lets see an example of how constructive criticism differs from destructive criticism:

Alex and Jack, both study in Second Grade. Both got ‘B’ grade in the mid term Maths test and ‘A’ grade in English. Lets see how their mothers respond:

Alex	John
Mom: I knew you can never get anything better than ‘B’ in maths. You always make careless mistakes. You never listen to me. How many times have I told you this… and .. that	Mom: Got an ‘A’ in English! That’s very good! That shows how hard did you work for English, and if you work a little harder in Maths, you could get an ‘A’ in Maths as well.
Destructive criticism	Constructive criticism

Click here to learn....How to criticize so that your child doesn't get hurt.

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