Compliments Create a Positive Atmosphere in Homes and Classrooms

Compliments and appreciations bring us closer together. Finding ways to compliment your children can be a very valuable parenting tool. So often we are focused on what our children have done wrong. This week focus on what your children have done right and give them an appropriate compliment. "I appreciate how quickly you get dressed and ready for school." "I notice how kindly you cared for Anna when she felt sad, I bet it helped her feel better." "Thank you for setting the table." You will be amazed how this simple act will change the atmosphere in your home.

It is also important for children to learn how to give compliments.
Siblings don’t have any trouble bickering and putting each other down, but they struggle with the idea of appreciating each other? Maybe it all boils down to training. Giving and receiving compliments is a skill that needs to be taught and practiced. Family meetings provide that opportunity.

Begin every family meeting by having each person give every other member of the family a compliment. This may be awkward at first if the children have the habit of name-calling. If this is the case, spend some time discussing the kinds of things they could look for to compliment one another about. Parents can model this behavior by beginning with compliments for each member of the family. Also, if you see something nice going on between the children, remind them to remember it for a compliment. You might even suggest that they write it on the family meeting agenda so they will remember—and their sibling can enjoy seeing it as well as hearing it.

Hearing my kids be mean to each other was so difficult for me, so I was thrilled that the hurtful comments were reduced when we held regular family meetings starting with compliments. However, one summer we got so busy that I did not follow my own advice to not let anything interfere with regular family meetings. Bickering and discipline hassles increased tremendously. The kids started insulting one another more often. Finally, I called for a family meeting. The kids had been so mean to each other that I thought they would have difficulty giving one another compliments. However, their years of training came back to them and they gave each other very nice compliments. As we continued regular family meetings the insults decreased significantly, as did bickering and discipline hassles.

Following is an excerpt from the Family Meeting Album

COMPLIMENTS PAGES

You can create a positive atmosphere in your family when everyone learns to look for the good in each other and to verbalize positive comments. Please don’t expect perfection. Some sibling squabbling is normal. However, when children (and parents) learn to give and receive compliments, negative tension is reduced considerably. Of course, a positive atmosphere is increased even more when families have regular family meetings to find solutions to problems.

Family Meeting Compliment Activity:

1. Place blank compliment sheets on the refrigerator (or another spot) where everyone can write down compliments for others each day. (Young children can dictate their compliments to older members of the family.) 
2. When you see someone that deserves a compliment, write it down, or ask a child who also observed something someone else did, "Would you like to write that on our compliment sheet?" Once children develop the habit of noticing compliments, they won’t need reminders. 
3. At the beginning of each family meeting, family members can read their compliments. 
4. Ask for any verbal compliments that were not written down. 
5. Make sure every family member receives at least one compliment. 
6. Place this compliment sheet in the family meeting binder, and place another blank sheet on the refrigerator to be filled out during the week.

Classroom Example

Two boys in a class were frequently putting one another down. The problem began to escalate into other issues between them. At that point, the boys brought the topic of put-downs to their teacher for a problem-solving session.

At the teacher's suggestion, the boys agreed to keep a record of this problem for a period of time. Together they developed a chart with four categories for data collection. The first column read "Win-Win." To have a check mark in this column, the comment (made by either boy) had to be positive-a nice thing to say and to hear. The next column was headed "Win-Lose." This was for a put-down that one child enjoyed giving but that was at the other child's expense. The third column was "Lose-Lose." This was for any time both boys got in trouble for and felt badly about a put-down. The final column was "Lose-Win." The flip side of the second column, this was for the child who had been on the receiving end of the hurtful put-down. Another feature of this system was that, even though each boy kept a chart, they had to agree on where they would place each mark.

They followed this plan for a week and almost always agreed about where the marks should go. Each boy became aware of how often he was using put-downs. At the end of the week, the boys checked back in with the teacher. He asked them what they had learned by gathering the data. As they discussed their observations, both boys noted that they preferred win-win remarks to any other kind. They also discovered that they were now exchanging fewer put-downs. However, one of the boys clearly felt more disparaged and much worse about the put-downs than the other boy. This was an important realization for both of them.

After becoming more aware of their own behavior and the consequences, these two students chose to stop using put-downs. In fact, they became friends, and for the rest of the year they frequently gave each other compliments in class meetings.

Family Meetings

Several years ago some Adlerians recorded a bunch of family meetings in different families. For two years they looked for the perfect family meeting. Finally they gave up because they couldn't find a perfect family meeting. However, they were delighted with the positive results in families (more effective communication, focusing on solutions, having more fun together) even though their meetings were not perfect.
   
Keeping in mind that mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn, the biggest mistake parents made that kept the meetings from coming closer to perfection was talking too much. Children are not thrilled about family meetings that provide another platform for parents to lecture. Parents need to talk less and listen more. Yes, I know how difficult this is—I’m still working on it. Somehow we parents think we aren’t doing our jobs unless we are talking, talking, talking.

Family meetings are one of the most important tools parents can use to teach children so many valuable social and life skills such as:

• Listening skills
• Brainstorming skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Mutual respect
• The value of cooling off before solving a problem. (Problems are put on the family meeting agenda so a cooling off period takes place before focusing on solutions to the challenge.)
• Concern for others
• Cooperation
• Accountability in a safe environment. (People don’t worry about admitting mistakes when they know they will be supported to find solutions instead of experiencing blame, shame, or pain.)
• How to choose solutions that are respectful to everyone concerned
• A sense of belonging and significance
• Social interest
• That mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn
• Having fun together as a family

Family Meetings provide an opportunity for parents to:

• Avoid power struggles by respectfully sharing control
• Avoid micromanaging children, so children learn self-discipline
• Listen in ways that invite children to listen
• Respectfully share responsibility
• Create good memories through a family tradition
• Model all of the skills they want their children to learn

Where else can you get so much for such a small investment in time? Family meetings provide a wonderful family tradition that may carry on for generations.

It is most effective to have family meetings once a week and to stick to the allotted time of 20 to 30 minutes—even if everything on the agenda has not been covered. This will help your children learn "delayed gratification." Also, it gives them time to absorb what was discussed during the meeting, to try the agreed upon solution, and to practice working things out for themselves in between meetings.

My children loved family meetings when they were four to twelve or so. Then they started complaining, as typical teens do, about how stupid family meetings were. I asked them to humor me, and that we could shorten the time from 30 minutes to 15.

One day Mary, one of the complainers, spent the night at a friend’s house. The next day she announced, “That family is so screwed up. They should be having family meetings.” When Mary went off to college, she initiated regular “family meetings” with her roommates and said they would not have survived without them.

If you need help getting your Family Meetings started, consider getting the Family Meeting Album. This download product provides a step-by-step process for starting and organizing family meetings. A family meeting album can be as much fun as a photo album. You and your family will chuckle as you look back at past challenges you solved together. You will enjoy looking at your family mottos, gratitude pages, mistakes you learned from, problems you solved, fun things you did together, and meals you planned. This album is designed so you can insert a photo of YOUR family to create your own Family Meeting Album. You can print out many of the pages over and over to use each week.

Get Your Family Meeting Album - Only $2.99

Connection Before Correction

Extensive research shows that we cannot influence children in a positive way until we create a connection with them. It is a brain (and heart) thing. Sometimes we have to stop dealing with the misbehavior and first heal the relationship.

Connection creates a sense of safety and openness. Punishment, lecturing, nagging, scolding, blaming or shaming create fight, flight, or freeze.

One of my favorite examples of “connection before correction” is, “I love you; and the answer is no.” This example also illustrates the Positive Discipline concept of Kind and Firm at the same time.

Before sharing more ways to create a connection with children, I want to point out that it is a mistake to think that giving children whatever they want is effective. Rescuing, fixing, and over-protecting are not good ways to create a connection. Effective connections are made when both child and adult feel belonging and significance. Most of the Positive Discipline parenting tools provide skills for creating a connection.

They will all be discussed in more detail as we choose a card each week. Following is a preview:

• Spend special time with children. What could create a greater connection for your child than to know your enjoy spending time with him or her.
• Listen. Really listen. Stop doing whatever you are doing and give your child your full attention
• Validate your child’s feelings. Don’t we all feel connected when we feel understood?
• Share your feelings and thoughts when appropriate. Remember that children will listen to you AFTER they feel listened to. Children feel a connection when you respectfully share something about yourself. Respectfully, means no stories about walking miles in the snow.
• Focus on solutions WITH children after a cooling off period. There is that word "with" again–because it is a golden bridge to connection.
• Ask curiosity questions to help children explore the consequences of their choices instead of imposing consequences on them. Sincere questions open the heart and the rational brain—equaling connection.
• Hugs. There are times when all of us need nothing more than a hug.

Once the connection is made, children are then open to respectful correction.

It is important to understand that "Correction" in the Positive Discipline way is very different from conventional correction. The biggest difference is that conventional correction usually involves punishment (punitive time-out, grounding, and taking away privileges being the most common). In other words, conventional correction consists of adults doing something TO children. Positive Discipline correction respectfully involves children whenever possible, finding solutions WITH them.

Two great methods for finding solutions are family or class meetings and joint problem solving. These are powerful tools that respectfully involve children to learn and use their personal power in contributing ways. Connection is created as part of the process.

When children feel a connection, they feel belonging and significance. Often that is enough for misbehavior to stop. As you learn about the many Positive Discipline tools, notice that they are all designed to create a connection before respectful correction.

To learn more about Connection Before Correction, listen the following excerpt from my Building Self-Esteem Through Positive Discipline lecture.

Connection Before Correction

Encouragement

Many of you know that we have a Positive Discipline Social Network where members encourage and support each other in the practical application of Positive Discipline. Recently someone posted a discussion about a friend who is feeling discouraged about a son who keeps getting into trouble at a school that uses the colored card system. Every time he “misbehaves,” he gets a colored card and his parents are expected to punish him at home.

I had to respond to this discussion because I have a close friend who is going through the same thing. Of course you might guess my opinion of the color cards—a very dysfunctional system. Then teachers encourage parents to be dysfunctional at home—adding more punishment. Before I continue, I will say that there are many good things at my friend’s child’s school—including the teacher. The school and this teacher simply believe in Behaviorism—that punishment and rewards are the best way to motivate “good” behavior—very different from the Adlerian Psychology base of Positive Discipline. So, I will share with you the advice I have given to my friend.

Don't add punishment at home. Keep encouraging him to focus on solutions. My friends concern was that his solution was to be sent to his room for 5 minutes and she didn't think that was severe enough.

At this point I have to digress and editorialize. It is so interesting to me that parents and teachers are willing to keep doing a punishment over and over, even if it doesn't work, but stop doing a Positive Discipline tool after one or two tries because it doesn't seem to work--right away.

I told my friend to take his suggestion and send him to his room for 5 minutes (very different from punishment when it is his idea). When he comes out avoid discouraging lectures. Use encouragement.  Just say, "I hope this works." If it doesn't work—which it won't because he is only a kindergartner and gets colored cards for things like talking (socializing with his friends)—which is developmentally appropriate for a Kindergarten child to do. (Arrrgggghhh!).

Celebrate every time he gets a colored card. This provides another opportunity for him to practice working on solutions. Every time he does, be encouraging and simply say, "Cool. I hope this works."  No reprimands when it doesn't—just anther opportunity to practice problem solving—over and over and over.

Now lets time travel five years from now. Make some guesses about what a child might be thinking, feeling, and deciding about himself after many opportunities and encouragement to experiment with solutions when he gets into trouble. Then make some guesses about what that same child might be thinking, feeling, and deciding after experiencing punishment at school and at home every time he gets into trouble.

It is very important to consider the long-term results of what we do. Lately I have been using the analogy of what it takes for a child to learn to talk—years of example—first to say a word, then more listening to examples and encouragement to learn sentences, and more years to keep developing and perfecting language. Why do we expect immediate results for other kinds of learning. Why do we expect social (behavior) learning to be immediate? And, how well would children learn to talk if they were humiliated and punished every time they got it wrong.

Children learn what they live. If we want our children to grow up learning to be kind and firm and respectful, we better make sure that is what they live. Remember that encouragement is the foundation of Positive Discipline. As Rudolf Dreikurs said, over and over, "A child needs encouragement like a plant needs water. It is essential to healthy growth and development.

Listen to the excerpt below which beautiful illustrates how encouragement can work much better than punishment. The following is an excerpt from the Building Self-Esteem Through Positive Discipline MP3.

The Discouraged Child