I’m a parent myself, I know that sometimes you have to raise your voice, sometimes you have to be stern, sometimes you have to be the bad guy, and sometimes you have to deal out consequences. For some people its more often than others.
Most of us as parents find ourselves having to teach the hard lessons often though.
Some people find themselves falling into a position of having to do so over and over on the same lessons. That will happen sometimes. When it does, it may be a good time to review your practices on the other side of that coin of teaching those lessons. There is no quick fix to everything, its more about the overall view.
Consistent reinforcement from our Kids Martial Arts instructors at Peaceful Warriors can help. So can making sure you encourage good behavior at ever possible opportunity, no matter how small at first.
So How Is Your Game With ENCOURAGEMENT PHRASES?
Encouragement phrases can be a powerful tool to complete your methods of reinforcing lessons with your kids. Kids have pretty short attention spans for the most part. So you may remember complimenting them on something yesterday, but they may not.
Phrasing and timing also matter. How you phrase something can change how the person you are saying it to perceives it. With kids this is exceptionally true. Making sure you try to use encouraging phrases related to desired behaviors and lessons as often as you can makes a HUGE difference with a little time
The best part?
The glowing faces and big smiles when they know they have made you happy!
Here are 23 great phrases you can use to help reinforce your lessons, in an encouraging way. They work very well when used consistently. You just may want to put them in your own words.
Just make sure you be specific about what you want to encourage!
- Look at how much better your getting!
- Thank you sir for using your courtesy (saying please or thank you). It really shows how much you care!
- I can tell you really care, great job showing compassion!
- Those grades show your hard work is paying off! Great job with your discipline!
- That must have taken some effort to clean your room! Thank you for showing the discipline to get it done!
- You make me smile!
- That is really creative! (versus YOU are so creative, which may feel hard to live up to next time)
- Your idea of how to do that is really smart! (versus you are so smart, which may feel hard to live up to if you have to be more stern about something in between)
- Thanks so much for holding the door! I like knowing how much you care to help!
- That was so helpful!
- You should be proud of yourself!
- You’ve done a great job reading that!
- You have done awesome trying to learn that!
- Thanks for helping with the dishes! It really made a big difference! (even if they were a little in the way, they are learning, encourage them while they are interested)
- You really made me happy saying/doing such a nice/courteous thing!
- You're doing a great job on that.
- That is an awesome attitude showing the perseverance to try again!
- That looks tough, I think you can figure it out, I believe in you!
- Even if you fall/mess up, I’ll still believe in you!
- It may seem hard but you make that look easy! (My son loves to hear this one)
- Don’t we make a great team?
- I love hanging out with you when you have such a great attitude like this!
- Thank you for your patience! I know it was hard but you did a great job waiting on me!