"you can do it"

I say this all the time at the moment to Baby, but I've just read that this can potentially set Baby up to believe that he will disappoint me by saying this, and on reflection I can see how this is true. One more phrase for me to catch and rephrase before it leaves my lips.

I've read articles in the past, and still am reading them, about things you should and shouldn't say to your child. It's easy to stay away from being negative, the hard part is knowing how to say positive things the 'right' way. There are so many things that I say naturally with the intention of trying to be positive and encouraging, but I know a lot of them do more harm than good. I guess I hope that by noting them down as I find them, I'll be more mindful of them and more careful about the words I use to support and encourage Baby.

respectful parenting

I enjoyed reading this article - it's something I aspire to, but I know I have a long way to go yet to achieve it. I think I have the first two points covered (the coming months and years will tell whether this is true). I'm working on trusting Baby's ability to learn skills by himself (I hope to go into this more in another post) and in time hopefully this will support Baby's ability to determine for himself how he wishes to spend his time - both require me to step back as a mum and not force my own agenda onto him (e.g. placing an object in front of him at 2 months, willing him to grab onto it, and even placing his hands onto it to show him that that is what I want him to do, yes I shamefully did do this).

The third point, accepting his feelings, is something I am already struggling with. Whenever someone is upset, my instinct is to comfort them by telling them it's ok, it will pass, and other similar platitudes (although I never intend them to be hollow statements!). However when Baby is upset and I do this, this actually invalidates his feelings, and I don't want him to end up mistrusting his emotions. I want him to know that it is ok to feel angry, or sad, or hurt - they may not be pleasant feelings, but it is impossible to go through life without feeling them. I don't want him to bury these feelings, I want him to know how to deal with them. So I need to change my approach, instead of telling him there's no reason to be upset, I need to acknowledge that something is upsetting him. Even though he can't tell me what that is right now (his nose is itchy? his back is hot?) soon he will be able to, and when that time comes I hope that he will tell me and that I will be there to listen to him.

praise

I've been reading a few interesting articles about praising your child recently. There are in fact 2 types of praise - 'fixed mindset' praise and 'growth mindset' praise. In a nutshell fixed mindset praise is praise that is directed at a particular attribute (e.g. "you're so smart" or "you're so beautiful") without any reference to why that praise was earned, whereas growth mindset praise focuses on the effort and the thought your child put into acting a certain way (e.g. "I like how you put your toys away without me asking you to, it keeps the room tidy"). It's important to offer both types of praise to your child, and I'm trying to do a healthy mix of both. I've started to be more mindful of how I'm praising Baby, as I don't want my praise to end up falling on deaf ears, I don't want my words of praise to become a way for me to lavish love upon my baby boy, and I don't want him to end up seeking his value from my opinion or the opinions of others (something which I think I suffer from). He may be too young to understand me when I tell him I can see how much effort he puts into grabbing his clothing off the cushion, or when I praise him for burping with almost no assistance from me, but better to start forming good habits early right?

As my memory is rather like a sieve these days, the links to the articles are below, in the high likelihood I will need to reread them.

An in depth article about the study into the effectiveness of fixed mindset praise vs growth mindset praise - How not to talk to your kids
http://notjustcute.com/2013/01/14/praise-junkies-part-two/
http://notjustcute.com/2012/06/12/praise-junkies-beware/
http://notjustcute.com/2012/01/24/pondering-praise/