Encouraging your child

Next to love, one of the most important things you can give your child is encouragement.

Although this sounds like a very funny comparison, I learnt how effective encouragement is when I when I was much, much younger; my mother used to breed, show and train Golden Retrievers. Throughout the litters we had many boisterous puppies and mum would always tell me - "They don't know what you are telling them so use your tone of voice and they will learn."

By using a positive, encouraging and warm tone of voice, your child will know she is doing the right thing - it must be very reassuring when you don't yet know how to communicate with words - but you can understand with tone. She learns quicker what is right and wrong.

How do you encourage your child? Do you have some examples where encouragement has or hasn't worked for you?

Hi - I'm new to BB and am trawling through all your categories here and saw that this one looks a little empty.

Potty training at the moment and I'm giving all encouragement I have. And its working, most of the time, when Caitlin poos on the pot she is as excited as i am. In the beginning, she made me come and watch and then get up and point at it in the pot and then we'd ring a nana or a friend and tell them. Other times, when she uses the pot, she'll just go and then come and find me and tell me like she does it everyday !!

I want her to get more excited about picking up her things, so when she does pick up the odd thing and put it back, I encourage that. I have been emphasising what a big girl she is, being two and picking things up and using the potty and using a big girls cup and all that biz. I think I'm quite animated with Caitlin and other children. More so than some of my other mum friends.

I read an article in that melbourne parents mag a while back about too much encouragement being a bad thing. And that you can go overboard about everyday things too much so that your child starts not responding, cos they've heard it all before. I dont think I'm at that stage yet !

Barb.

I think encouragement is VERY important. And for me manners go hand in hand with encouragement. If I ask DD to do something I try not to *tell* her but ask and I ask with pleases and thankyous. Its amazing how much it rubs off and how much happier she is to oblige when I use manners. If I expect DD to use her manners I *must* use mine too. And if she does use her manners I will thank her for using such good manners. Now she has got to the point where she thanks everyone for their manners LOL! DD has always done well with encouragement, I think its the best way to turn around bad behaviour. Well look it it this way does it make you feel better when you know you have done something good rather than bad? I don't think I would have time to praise too much as I wouldn't get anything done LOL. But I do think you can go overboard with the type of praise. ie. I don't throw a party everytime DD says please or thankyou LOL. For me this is the most effective part of parenting, this works better than discipline IMO.

Goodluck with the Potty Training!