Praising Kindness the Right Way

Children crave attention and will repeat those actions that get your notice. What you pay attention to will be magnified. You can spend more time reprimanding your children when they misbehave or more time praising them when they are doing what you want doing the latter is more effective in having your children behave as you want them to. Even though they are young, there are still many acts of kindness that children can do to make the world a better place, and you can help them along the way with approval and encouragement.

Here are some tips to make your praise more effective:

• Praise should occur as close to the action as possible since little ones have short attention spans and may not otherwise connect your comments to their actions. 
• Repeat stories of kind things they have done in the past to remind them of previous successes. By recalling "the time you helped the little boy who fell down on the playground find his mommy," you will encourage your child to help others in the future.
• Let them overhear you telling another adult, such as your spouse, a grandparent or your neighbor, about something thoughtful that they did. It is one of those oddities of life that children are more likely to believe your praise if they hear it indirectly.
• Make your praise as specific and descriptive as possible. Saying, "You are a good boy," may leave your child wondering what he did to deserve your approval. A more useful statement would be "I really appreciated when you played peek-a-boo with your baby sister so I could talk with the doctor."
• After describing the action, you can name the trait you want to reinforce. For example, "You let your friend play with your toy. That's what I call being considerate." Think of all the words you can use to describe their behaviors, such as caring, generous, helpful, kind, loving, patient, polite, supportive or thoughtful.  Your children may not understand all these terms and may ask you, "What does compassionate mean?" After defining the word, you can praise their curiosity and eagerness to learn. You can build their vocabulary while building their character.
• Even if they don't accomplish their goal, you can affirm their attempt. Your daughter may have been trying to put the cereal away when the box and everything in it fell to the floor. While you may enlist her assistance in holding the dustpan as you sweep up the mess, you can still state your appreciation for her wanting to help clean up the kitchen. You may go on to show her how to close the box top securely to encourage her to try again.

Praising your children reinforces the behaviors you want to promote. You can describe their actions and label their abilities and traits so that they can see themselves in positive terms, affirm themselves for helping and, ultimately, build a lifelong habit of making kindness count.