So, if I were worried about being politically correct, I would warn you that this post has a religious tone to it. However, I don't feel like political correctness is worth much -- I'm far more interested in Christian-correctness, so no warning necessary! Instead, we can praise the Lord together!
Book report time!
Feelings of inadequacy sometimes threaten this Clueless Mama into thinking of giving up on motherhood. Yes, yes, I know this is pretty much impossible, but anyways... My defense is to READ BOOKS. Attempting to educate myself makes me feel like I'm at least moving in the right direction.
I don't even remember how I heard about this book, but I'm so glad I did. Christlike Parenting gave me incredibly awesome ideas of how to apply my religion to my day-to-day life. AND -- like a double-whammy-bonus -- it helped me see my Savior in a new light, from a different angle.
The author's goal is for me to be able to apply the Savior's life as an example for motherhood. He took bible stories that I've known for decades and showed me how shepherding flocks is like mothering children. Beautiful!
The one element I'm going to pull out of the book for this blog post is the idea that most bad behavior can be ignored, while good behavior needs to be praised profusely. In fact, since the author is also a behavioral therapist, he said the ratio of positive interactions to negative needs to be roughly 8-to-1.
For every time I criticize my child, I need to find eight ways to compliment her.
WOW. As adorable as my children are, and they are indeed adorable, that is still a daunting task.
EIGHT happy, positive statements are necessary to balance the one time I yell or the one time I correct or the one time I treat my child as less than the child of God that she is.
The author admits that sometimes it's a reach. He suggests having a back-up collection of phrases as simple as, "Good breathing, son!" and "I like how your shoulders are so straight!" for times when I've been dishing out the disapproval so much that it's difficult to switch the gears into positive thinking.
Another tactic I've developed is to grasp hold of the one thing I can think of that's positive, and re-phrase it in several different ways. "Oh, Reed, thank you for hugging your sister and saying sorry. That is wonderful and shows so much love! I'm happy that you are full of love. I'm sure you feel that happy feeling, too! Oh, and look how happy she is! Isn't that wonderful? We're spreading love and happiness in our home." This line of thinking is where the title of today's post comes from!
I am so grateful the author saw fit to give me this goal... I rarely reach it (okay, so I rarely keep count), but just striving for it has made a huge difference in how I interact with my children. And, honestly, it has changed me into a happier person in general. I am constantly on the look-out for happy things to notice and point out. I love to see how my child's eyes shine when I compliment them!
Being aware that this came from a book about how God parents me, I've also started noticing his "compliments" -- also known as blessings -- and how they FAR outweigh the reprimands -- even beyond the 8-to-1 ratio!
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