Great thread topic

Instead we encouraged and acknowledged effort by commenting on the praise-worthy action; eg "You have worked so hard on that construction, well done!" or "I really like how you have chosen to share that toy, that is very kind of you".
I try to remember to do this... but yeah... good boy/good girl often slip out all too easily! I'm pretty sure I haven't done naughty or bad tho... i usually say I don't like when you do that or say that.

Same thing with calling them clever. You're better off praising the effort otherwise they feel they have to live up to being clever and often then don't even try for fear of failing.

As for the validation... I think to a certain extent seeking validation is ok.. altho if it's validation just for the sake of justifying something we're not really 100% about then it's not a good thing. But certainly asking others their opinions or what they would do isn't in itself a bad thing... I wouldn't like people to isolate themselves from the village even more thinking they can't put it out there in order to compare or feel validated. Did that even make sense?? (LOL - please validate what I just said! )