Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the how not to screw up your kids podcast, the bucket emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Hand, psychologist and parenting expert. So pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today, I want to share with you a super simple technique to add to your toolkit, which is powerful at encouraging our children to do more of what we want without the nagging. It's called descriptive praise. Now, let me just give you a bit of context about why I think this is such a powerful tool. We all love praise, don't we? And children more so. And so the idea behind descriptive praise, is that we're being super clear in any of those micro moments where our children do or begin the process of doing something that we really want them to do more of. So let's say you've got a child who really struggles to regulate their emotions. So they go from zero to explosion in a nanosecond. Now, you're really trying to help them find better mechanisms, maybe use their words a little bit more, dip into their own toolkit, and saying unkind things, throwing things, or just being generally overwhelmed by their emotions. Now, it's a process. We know that when it comes to changing behavior, it's a process. Step by step, we're working, making incremental marginal gains each time to help our children. But there's a process within that, that we want to keep encouraging our children to take those steps. And so it will take a while before our child is then able to regulate their emotions. But we don't want to wait. And only praise them when they're doing exactly what we want them to do. And this is where descriptive praise can be particularly powerful. We use it also when our children achieve the exact sort of behaviors that we want, and they're doing all of the things that we would encourage them to do. But it's also where the real sweet spot is in that keeping that drive and that motivation that they have there so that they can keep making those small incremental gains. So what we're doing with that descriptive praise is every time they evidence even a momentary pause before they then hit their usual MO, which is to go from zero to explosion. If we praise that momentary, oh, they're just trying not to explode. And I can really see that they've tried, but they've ended up having their usual explosion. Then what we do is that we begin to build their confidence. They begin to see in a really clear way because we've described it. And I'll talk you through the sort of the three steps of it. But they can really see that we're acknowledging that we've noticed that they're trying. And we've been super clear about what it is specifically that they've tried to do, the behaviors that they've specifically done that we would like to see more of. And that's where it becomes super powerful. Now, before I talk you through the steps, some of you will be thinking, quite frankly, Mary-Anne, there is absolutely nothing at the moment that I can praise. I love my child, but I just, I'm overwhelmed. They're just being really challenging and I can't find anything. When we choose to have this tool as something that we want to regularly engage with, it does shift the lens that we look at our child through. Trust me, I have been there and you're sort of dealing with a really challenging set of behaviors. And often it's more than one. And it just feels like every single day you're slightly bracing yourself. You're putting on your armor ready for another onslaught of a day that's going to be particularly challenging. But when we make a real intention, a real conscious effort that today I am really going to look for something that I can descriptively praise in my child. It's how quickly you then find more. It's just that shift. It's that, you know, we talk about it being this cognitive confirmation bias is when we're in that mode of, you know, my child is just being so problematic, so challenging, and it's creating a huge atmosphere at home and just finding it really unpleasant to parent. We tend to notice more of the challenging behavior, but when we make that intentional shift that they're not perfect, they are being really challenging. There are nuggets of hope in this challenging behavior where they're really trying. And I'm going to actively seek that out today and find one thing, find two things, whatever that, wherever your headset might be at. If you're at that extreme end of really struggling to find anything, then just make that commitment that you're really going to try and find one thing that they're either doing spot on, or you can see that they're genuinely really, really trying. And that could be a really helpful thing. And what you might find is if you really are in that deep hole spiral of really struggling to find anything is give yourself that nudge. There's a couple of things that you can do that will just be more intentional is that put post-it notes up in the kitchen, in the sitting room, in whatever, wherever you find yourself often have seen that challenging behavior, just write descriptive praise. And so it nudges you because it's more intentional. So it kind of that gentle reminder. The other thing you can do is maybe get some ribbon, red, blue, green, something that's bright, tie it round your wrist. And that is your reminder to descriptively praise. And once you've done it, you take it off. I've had people put two or three bangles on and that reminds them that they, you know, they they've made that intention to do it two or three times. And so it's just, it's that. Just that initial prompt. And trust me, once you start doing it, you'll find it much, much easier just to remember doing it. And it's not because you're a bad parent and that you don't praise your children. It's just simply when we're caught in a set of challenging behaviors that we're trying to shift, that it can be really difficult to see the wood for the trees. And so this, this is just a really great way to kind of nudge, remind. And the impact, the positive impact of using descriptive praise is immediate. Genuinely, I've seen children, they're suddenly sort of, I don't know, five foot taller or something or three inches taller because of that sudden, that praise is like, Oh, well, maybe I can do a bit more of this. So it's really, really helpful. So let me talk you through the three kind of the practicalities of it. The first one is because it's descriptive praise. The first one is simply say what you see. For those of you who watch catchphrase, it's all about literally say what you see. I've noticed, Jack, that whilst you got really angry with your sister, I could see you really trying not to be, and you were trying to offer her another toy instead before you got frustrated. And I'm really proud of you for trying. I know it didn't quite work out the way that you wanted to, but I could really see how hard that you worked at that. Say what you see. And the beauty about saying what you see is it takes the child to the next level. And so what you've done is you've praised your child, and who doesn't love praise? And you've praised them in a way that you've been super clear what it was that you were impressed with, what it was that made you super proud, what it was that was really good. And so what then happens, and this is where I've seen it time and time again, is that the child will just repeat that pattern of behavior because now you've given me some clarity. Instead of saying, Jack, you always get so angry with your sister. You always get so angry with your sister. And she's only little and she doesn't understand that they're your toys. You need to share, for example, doesn't really give Jack any clear direction about the desired behavior that we want in future. When we descriptively praise the tiny moments where he's demonstrated the behavior that we want, we've made it really clear to him. And of course, you need to be immediate in that praise because it's just happened. So he can access that memory and know what to do next. So the first thing is it should be really clear. Say what you see. Number two is be as succinct as you possibly can. Few words, real clear, and ditch the extra fluff. You're so amazing. That was wonderful. Oh, you're incredible. Ditch it. It doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't give them any clarity. It doesn't explain what you've loved that you would want to see more of. So say what you see and be as succinct as you possibly can. And that's what we're going to do next. As succinct as you possibly can. And then the third bit is periodically, don't do this all of the time because it then loses its power, but periodically add in some random rewards, which your child values. And in my experience, this is often time rather than things. They stay up a little bit later. They get an extra book at story time. They get extra cuddles. It's, Those sorts of things, or you sit down and play their favourite game them. It's often time that children value. And when we give them random rewards, that's much more powerful, I've found, than if you do X, you'll get Y. Because the random reward can be, Jack, I was so impressed with how you really tried with your sister then. And I think that was so good. Let's go and play your favourite game, just the two of us. So you're giving them that something, you've explained to them the behaviour that you've seen that you really love, and you've shown them periodically that when I see more of this, more good stuff happens. So I hope that that's a really helpful tool for your toolkit. And do keep me posted with how you found it and your success stories. Now, as ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, if you enjoy the podcast generally, I would really love it if you could just take a few moments to rate and review the podcast. And if you follow the podcast, so it's just simply a click to say that you follow, what happens is all of the podcast episodes, as they get released, just get popped in your library, almost like imagine like a personal delivery into your library so that you can listen to the episodes when you're ready. So if you can follow, rate and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time. Thank you so much for watching. And I'll see you in the next episode. Bye bye. Thank you.
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