Heads up: This post is 13 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
Yesterday, I attended the “Children’s Learning Style” and “Parenting by Guidance” seminar by Dr. Louise Porter. A lot of the materials were similar to the things I’ve learned in Reggio Emilia, RIE and other early childhood education and development materials. Things like acknowledge your children’s success but don’t praise, empathise with their failures, don’t solve their problems, model good behaviour rather than teaching verbally… and many more. Still, Dr. Louise Porter delivered her messages in a fun and easy to understand way. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were three points that stuck out in my mind.
The extent of harm create by praise to a child’s self-esteem - I’ve read about using acknowledgement rather than praise, it makes sense to me because praise comes from another person, I’d much rather my kids have the sense of accomplishment from within themselves. It turns out, giving children feedback that describes their achievements, rather than judging these, gives children information about who they are, without taking that extra step of implying that they must behave in particular ways for us to value them. In this way, acknowledgment safeguards their self-esteem.
Various studies have documented that adult paedophiles molest children between 150 and 560 times before being caught, across as many as 380 victims - I was taken aback by these numbers. When I started the child-initiated learning playgroups, I just felt that “respecting children” was right, now I’ve learned that there’s actually real danger in not respecting our children’s bodies. Seemingly harmless things like tickling our kids even if they say “no”, actually sends a horrible message of “You don’t get to have a say, you have to submit to an authoritative figure and let him to things to your body!”
“Children need our compassion the most when they appear to deserve it the least.” - This simple statement is gold! I’ve recently began to realize but couldn’t put it into words. It’s all about staying connected to your child. When he pushes all your buttons and make you really mad, that’s actually a signal that you’ve lost the attachment with him, and he wants you to reconnect with him. This made me want to go home immediately and hug my babies.