Monday, March 26, 2012

Mistakes!

The Positive Discipline Tool we worked with this week was Mistakes.  The point of this tools is to use mistakes as opportunities to learn.  Instead of making children feel bad for making mistakes, parents should try to encourage them to look at the mistake and why or how it happened to learn from it.

This is something that we try to do in our house anyway, so this week was just a nice reminder that mistakes are good things.  The important thing about mistakes being good things is that they don't have to be bad things.    That is a very helpful realization in many ways.

The first good thing that comes from treating mistakes in a positive way, is that it makes it a lot easier to let go of the mistake.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, my daughter responds very well to my maintaining a calm demeanor.  When mistakes happen, and we approach them with excitement to learn or laughter we both reamin more calm and our home more peaceful.  We learn what we can from the mistake and then move on, no dwelling on it and feeling sorry for ourselves or angry with others.

The other great thing about being able to laugh at your own mistakes is the lesson in humility that it teaches every time.  Let's be real, we all make mistakes, no one is perfect or even close, so there is really no reason to pretend to be in front of our children.  When children learn that mistakes are ok, then they know that they are also ok.  No need for shame or regret to enter into the equation, just laugh, learn and move on.

It is a pretty simple idea that may take some practice if it is not what you are used to doing.  Once you get the hang of it you will probably notice a lot more peace and a lot less frustration from the little people in your life who are truly learning every moment of every day.  Make what they learn be something good!

Next week we will take a look at: The Three R's of Recovery!
humility - learning to not be perfect

No comments:

Post a Comment