TRANSCRIPT
"How do I praise my eight year old's successes
while encouraging her that she can do more?"
Well, first, praise.
Praise should be appropriate to the achievement
and accomplishment.
So clearly your child making her bed
or helping out in the kitchen
will not receive the same amount of recognition and praise
as would something that she had been practicing
for weeks or working on for weeks
and then it finally coming to fruition.
The second part of this question
I would like to rephrase and say,
how can we encourage her to continue to develop,
because she is developing,
and she is learning,
and every day she is doing more,
and she is learning more.
She is doing this naturally as an eight year old,
it does not have to be forced.
And with whatever we're doing,
it involves some level of interest and skill.
So with that,
your eight year old may be doing something now
that she has interest in and is showing skill in.
So continue to develop that,
continue to show support.
However, there are other areas where she can grow.
So, allow time for other boxes,
don't put all your energy into box one.
Let's look at box two.
It could be something that your child
is saying she's interested in,
but is still developing her skills.
And for an eight year old,
this is a common scenario,
and I would say that a lot of an eight year old's activities
will fall in here.
So, continue to give exposure to her interests
and have her try it out,
see if she has skills.
See if, you know, there are some innate abilities there
that just haven't been allowed to come out.
However, I always caution,
whose interests are you pushing?
Yours or your child's?
Along with that, this box three,
and I call box two and box three the parent traps
because of this,
so in box three there may be no interest
on your child's part,
but your child has skill in it.
And naturally, as the parent,
you will push your child to do things
that you see she has ability in,
even though she may not be interested.
So develop with caution.
You want your child to begin to start expressing
her wants, her desires,
and telling you,
"Mom, I would like to try this,"
or, "Yes, I'm also interested in that."
So get her feedback on things
before just pushing her into things,
even though she may have skills in it.
You want her to start to develop her sense of self.
Box four, also very common for eight year olds.
They're not interested in an activity
and are showing no skills in it,
but you as a parent should expose your child
to as much as possible.
So, you wanna do this to teach open-mindedness,
and maybe an interest does develop,
maybe a skill does develop.
But include your child in these activities,
or put a spin on it that may add some level of interest
so that your child wants to buy into the activity,
or at least look into it.
I hope these tips help
and we'll see you next time.
