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Chapter Three

Accentuate the Positive

So far, you have learned how to set simple goals for your family and how to give clear directions to increase your children's compliance. If you are following these strategies, you should be noticing a positive shift in how you and your children interact. Now we will take advantage of that positive momentum and begin to use encouragement to teach your children new skills. The way to do that is to catch your children being good. Even the most obstinate kids do something right occasionally. You just have to look for it.

Our research shows that accentuating the positive side of parenting and minimizing the negative build children's self-confidence and enhance a spirit of cooperation throughout the family. You may not be able to eliminate negativity altogether; problems have a way of creeping into life. But know this—a parent's negative comments carry more weight than praise. It takes about five positive remarks to make up for the cost of a single negative comment. This positive-to-negative balance operates as a kind of bank account. To maintain a positive balance, you have to look for the many small positive steps your children take as they learn the skills for success in today's world. Shining a light on their small accomplishments will nurture the new behaviors that will help them grow. So how do you catch your children being good?

Let's say Kristin, your five-year-old daughter, has been having a bad day and it's starting to get to you. You are in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher while Kristin is having a bowl of cereal at the table. When she finishes, she stands on her tippy toes to put her empty bowl in the sink, but it slips and lands with a loud clunk. The bowl didn't break, but it could have. What does your critical side urge you to do? You could yell: “Watch out, Kristin! Can't you be more careful? You almost broke that bowl!”

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Okay, let's back up and take a closer look at what just happened. Your daughter was helping you without being told. She was probably feeling good about it, too. Instead of offering Kristin praise for helping, you criticized her for not doing it perfectly. Without realizing it, you just taught Kristin to associate helping out with being scolded. This kind of situation happens among adults as well. If you are criticized when trying to help your boss or a coworker, you probably think: “That's the last time I help that jerk.” So what happens if we rewind and turn that situation around to accentuate the positive?

When Kristin puts her bowl in the sink, you have the chance to catch her being good. Seize the moment! Stop what you're doing! Smile at her, and say: “Thank you for putting your bowl away, Kristin. You are such a big help.” Your daughter beams a smile in return.

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It may not seem like much, but by praising her action, you strengthen the odds that she will want to put her bowl away again or do other things to please you. And if you don't want your dishes broken, you can put a small step stool next to the sink.

Grin and Bear It

Have you ever tried to keep a smile plastered on your face when you are stressed out, tired, and angry inside? Then you know how hard it can be sometimes to accentuate the positive. If you are stressed out and with your children, you have to be extra careful not to let your irritability wipe out the positive balance you've accrued in your relationship account. You know how that goes. Your son does something wrong; you notice his mistake and correct him: “No. Don't do it that way! I told you to fold the towels into thirds like this. How hard can that be?” The positive approach goes something like this: “You're good at folding towels in half. Let me show you a new way that makes it super easy to stack them in the linen closet.”

Teaching through encouragement builds cooperation. Encouragement—“Good job! That's how to do it!”—promotes mastery and self-confidence in your children. Children's positive feelings are infectious and will spread throughout the family. We have shown this to be true in our studies for children of all ages. On the other hand, criticism, even when it's constructive, hurts. Most human beings react to pain by striking back, withdrawing, or resisting. Think of your own experiences with criticism. The comments you recall as you're drifting off to sleep are often the negative ones that point out your mistakes or flaws.

Negative comments include criticism, disagreements, and correction. Of course, we have to correct our children from time to time; and yes, we know that disagreements lead to new perspectives. But when it comes to teaching children, it's best to avoid criticism and save disagreements for other times.

It seems to be a universal principle that we learn best when someone sets us up to succeed and recognizes our progress along the way. When you use encouragement to teach your children, they approach new experiences with a sense of excitement. Whether you realize it or not, you have been using encouragement to teach your children already. Remember when they were tiny tots learning to walk? You held their hands for their first steps. You stood right at their side as they started walking on their own. And they knew just how proud you were because you showered them with smiles and praise. It was easy then. You also found it easy to teach your children language. When they were babies, you played sound games with them, helping them build sounds into words and words into sentences. Using language is one of the most important human activities, and parents are the primary teachers for helping children form this foundational skill. You have shaped the way your children speak and the things they talk about through daily conversation. Did you even notice how often you accentuated the positive?

Depending on their age, you may have taught your children toileting, getting dressed, brushing their teeth, and table manners. Next, you introduced more complicated skills, like playing games, washing dishes, and doing homework. For most parents, teaching complex skills is more difficult because they involve many steps, present different challenges for each child, and require attention and patience to achieve. Children's success depends on their parents'teaching skills and their ability to stay involved.

We have developed and tested two main approaches to teaching through encouragement that work well—tokens and incentive charts. Both depend on your active support for taking small steps on the path to reaching a goal. Tokens are effective for frequently occurring simple behaviors like following directions. Incentive charts help children learn daily routines like going to bed and complex skills like completing a chore. Both approaches involve setting children up for success, encouraging small steps along the way, and noticing and rewarding good behavior. In this way, parents shine the light on what they want to grow. We call this “learning while earning.” Here is the basic technique for teaching through encouragement.

Strategies for Teaching Through Encouragement

 Identify a goal behavior or skill to develop.

 Break the goal into achievable steps.

 Clearly describe each step.

 Tailor steps to the child's abilities.

 Notice and encourage the child's efforts.

 Identify stumbling blocks, then break that step into smaller steps.

 As the child achieves mastery, increase the challenge.

 Reinforce efforts.

 Celebrate accomplishments.

Tokens

When using a token system, you give children small symbols of your approval for specific behaviors. When they earn a given number of tokens, they can trade them in for incentives that serve as motivators. For some children, social rewards like smiles, hugs, compliments, high fives, fist bumps, and simple words of praise are enough. Other children need an extra boost, especially when they have developed bad habits, the behavior is difficult, or times are stressful. When social rewards don't do the trick, we recommend pairing praise and smiles with tokens. Combining social rewards with tokens increases the value of words and gestures. After a behavior is learned, you can start limiting your use of tokens and rely on social rewards.

A token system can be as flexible as you like, as long as the rules are clear. The first step is to decide what kind of tokens you will use. Here are some suggestions to guide your choices.

Strategies for Choosing Tokens

 Choose tokens that are fun, so kids enjoy earning them.

 Choose tokens that are immediate, so they can be used right away.

 Choose tokens that are tangible, so kids can touch or see them.

 Choose tokens that are portable, so they can be used anywhere and are easy to have on hand.

 Choose tokens that give a clear message of appreciation.

 Choose tokens that are flexible, so you can adapt them to your needs, as well as your kids'needs.

You already know the kinds of things your children find attractive. Preschoolers and early school-age kids tend to like stickers. They come in the most wonderful varieties, from simple stars and smiley faces to playful critters or space aliens. For older kids, you can use tally marks on a chart or piece of paper. Whatever you choose, tokens need to be portable so you can use them when you are out and about with your children. Scooby Loops, the stretchy loops used to make potholders, can be used as tokens and repurposed into bracelets or wristbands. You can buy them in craft stores by the scores in all sorts of colors. Some parents load their wrists with a dozen or so of these and, when their children earn a token, they transfer one to the child's wrist. Most kids like to choose the color themselves, and the exchange takes place amid smiles and giggles. There are many other kinds of tokens you can use. Some parents carry beans or colored pasta shapes in their pockets. As the child earns a token, the parent can shift it from one pocket to the other, or give it to the child.