Challange #2, Day 1

This is a daily update in a series of blog posts for the challange we recently took with my wife. Our goal is to make us think before praising our son, think if it’s reasonable or what impact it may have. How did we do on Day #1?

A rather “easy” day to start with- Eliyahu was in a very bad mood today so there were very few chances to praise him not to mention over-praising. I’ve spent two or three hours with him and all went great. At first. But then he got into bath with mom and that’s where I slipped… The mood has changed rapidly as if nothing bad ever happened and I could’t help but praise him as soon as he reached that shower-hanger hanging above his head (and he did that with a little help from his mother..). Very good reason to praise a boy, is it not?

Other than that, I would often talk to him using a tone as if I was praising, but really just kindly asking questions like “how are you feeling?”, “what are you doing?” etc.- not sure how bad is that. My gut feeling is that should be fine. Is it?

BTW, I took a chance to ask Sherri from Zen Family Habits what’s her take on praising a child to get more insight. She “promised” a blog post. Well, I’m really looking forward to it.