Praising your children

The following regards discipline :

Say "we" when disciplining to involve the child and not make your decision a "command" from you but it helps to involve the child ... "We do not do that behavior ,...." And be involved even more by saying something more like this "We do not bite because it hurts ..." being very specific ... "We do not use that tone of voice because it hurts others' feelings" .... telling "why" "we" do not do something , well that involves the child and explains everything specifically ,,, On the flip side ... "We say thank you because that is what is polite ... and being polite is what everyone likes" ....... (How strange I am finding it so easy to find phrases to discipline and can not seem to find words of praise ...)  Let's also think about how to praise ....

Any ideas for praising children ... most advice points to discipline and yet there are times our babes are great .... important to praise good behavior too ... any advice on that ?

Praising your children any chance you get is important.  As someone else wrote in response to your question, for every correction you should be praising 5 times.  As my daughter is still quite young, a lot of what I will say comes from my experience as a primary school teacher. 

As a teacher I was not permitted to hug and kiss our students, so I had to use my words and other actions to praise.  The affect of praise on children is amazing.  You can get a child to behave ten times easier than by disciplining.  In fact, ignoring bad behaviour (when it isn't hurting the child or anyone else) and praising good behaviour is taught as an effective discipline tactic.  It's even more important to praise children when they are doing something they have found difficult in the past.  Let me give you an example from my experience with my own daughter.  She loved pulling the heating vents out of the floor.  When she would put her hands on one and not pull it up, I heaped on the praise.  Even I was surprised by how quickly she learned not to pull them out.

So what can you say or do?  A lot of the time as simple smile can do wonders.  A pat on the shoulder and a whisper, "You're doing a great job," can give you the brightest smile from a child.  Saying things like, "I love it when you..." or "Mommy (or Daddy) is very happy when you...".  Even just a "Good girl or boy!" works great.

The key is that children need to learn to behave or do good things just for the sake of doing them, not to get a reward.  Rewards only lead to bigger rewards.  What happens when the $20 doesn't work anymore?  This idea is from Ron Morrish.  He is a speaker and author of Secrets of Discipline.  This book is excellent and even a little eye-opening.  It talks all about how praise can do much more than discipline.  Morrish's ideas work wonderfully.