Five Cents’ Worth of Positive Feedback
Remind yourself to give kids more of the approval they crave by putting five pennies
in your pocket or on the window sill each day.
Use Pennies to Remember to Praise
The more attention kids get for the good things they do, the more they want to
repeat the behavior. Psychological research demonstrates that positive feedback has
a huge impact on motivating behavioral change. Yet we can easily find ourselves
focusing instead on what kids do wrong. Commit yourself to giving your kid 5 pieces
of positive feedback every day for a week, and see the difference it makes.
Here’s a useful way to remind yourself.
Start each day with 5 pennies in your righthand pocket or on one side of the window
sill. Each time you praise your kid, move a penny to the lefthand pocket or the other
side of the sill. By the end of the days, all of the pennies should move to the other
side.
Remember that effective feedback describes the behavior, describes the situation
and states the effect.
For Easter praises, why not put some positive statements inside those hidden eggs?