How to Affirm a Child Who Rejects Praise

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[24] Hey, so do you have a child who resist your praise?

[25] you try to affirm your child they discount it they don't want to hear it well that's what we're going to go through today on today's episode of the calm parenting podcast so welcome this is kirk martin founder celebrate calm you can find us at celebrate calm .com if you need help call and praise my son casey because he's pretty awesome wasn't so much as a kid all the time but he is now and his name is k -c -a -s -s -c -y at celebrate calm .com so oh if you need help tell us about your tell us what you're struggling with and we'll get back to you with some ideas some strategies some insight hopefully we'll give you some hope and if you need any of our resources take advantage of the special father's day and summer sale we have going on right now if you need a custom package askazy so this will be kind of quick because i want you to practice this this week i was on a phone consultation with a couple and we're going through you know long list kind of coming up with an action plan for their son and one of those things was hey he's not that great at school all the time But he's really good, like a couple years ago, he took a wood cutting class and he could make these intricate wood cutting designs used to be when he was a kid.

[26] This is kind of instructive for you.

[27] So you're looking at 11, 12, 13 year old kid or maybe a 9 year old kid and he's kind of shut down.

[28] And his gifts and passions are playing video games and being defined.

[29] So you start digging in on the phone consultation.

[30] You can do this yourself and think back, what did he do before he shut down?

[31] What was he naturally curious about?

[32] And so the parents, it's interesting when you do the consultation, you'll hear parents like, well, here's what he's struggling with, and this is such a fight.

[33] And so I always have to come back to, but tell me what, tell me what's really in there.

[34] And so after a period of time, you found out, like, okay, did this really cool woodcutting class and made his dad this really cool, intricately designed.

[35] I'm not going to give it away because it's too specific to their situation, gift for their dad.

[36] And then minutes later, Dad's like, oh, yeah, when he was little, he would draw these really detailed drawings.

[37] And so he's a creative kid.

[38] He can see in three dimensions.

[39] He's very visual.

[40] He's very good at Legos.

[41] And he's good at arguing.

[42] And so you start to piece some things and patterns together.

[43] And so we want to switch this summer from just focusing on school, school, school.

[44] If you would just apply yourself, you need to work harder.

[45] Because you've done all that.

[46] and it hasn't changed anything in the last five, eight, ten, ten, fifteen years.

[47] So this summer, especially this month, let's start noticing and observing what he does do well.

[48] Does that child do well?

[49] And so I brought up affirming the child and they're like, well, he doesn't like when we praise him.

[50] And I was like, of course he doesn't.

[51] He's strong willed child.

[52] You can't win either way.

[53] And so these kids, if you praise them too overtly, they'll reject it because it feels like pressure.

[54] See, if you praise them, it either feels condescending like, you did such a good job, which sounds like we never thought you'd actually make a good choice, and you did, so we're going to be like overwhelmed and praise you, or it feels like our expectations are you're always going to make this good choice, so they reject it.

[55] And so we talked about being very, very specific in the praise.

[56] So two things.

[57] Be very specific and use a matter -of -fact statement a statement of fact so a few minutes before this the mom had said oh we love your podcast and it's so great we really look and i was like don't don't even go there i said i'm going to reject your praise i said now if you were to tell me kirk we find your podcast valuable because you give us scripts that we can use with our kids okay i appreciate that i can take that because it's not vague like oh you're so wonderful, it's specific.

[58] And it helps me latch onto something that inside I kind of know is true.

[59] Like that resonates with me. Telling me that I'm awesome does not resonate with me because I live with me and so does my family.

[60] But saying something specific that I actually know I'm pretty good at, well, that does affirm me and it makes me realize that, oh, I need to keep doing that, do more of that.

[61] So this family was going on a long drive this summer.

[62] And so they were asking for, hey, what can we do on this long drive?

[63] And I said, you know, one of the things you can do is bring out some of these qualities.

[64] And so here's kind of what this discussion I wanted to sound like.

[65] Hey, you know, we wanted to apologize to you for something.

[66] You know, we've been so focused on school that that's all we talk about.

[67] All we lecture you about is just school, school, school.

[68] And inadvertently, we have overlooked all of the great qualities you possess.

[69] Because, you know, we were just thinking, remember that woodworking class that you took and that intricate gift that you made Dad that's so awesome and means so much?

[70] It was really well done.

[71] And you know what that tells us?

[72] You have a gift in that.

[73] Like, you're actually very good at that.

[74] Like, you can picture things in your brain.

[75] and then you can execute on that.

[76] Like, you do these huge 4 ,000 -piece Lego sets, and you can just see in your brain how it's supposed to go together.

[77] I can't do that.

[78] Mom can't do that, but you can do that.

[79] And that's actually a unique skill.

[80] You probably take it for granted because you're just good at it.

[81] But here's the hard part.

[82] You don't get a grade for that.

[83] So you don't get a grade for building complex Lego sets or creating something with your own hands.

[84] See, if you got grades for that, you'd be an eight, you'd have all A's.

[85] And you would be the shining one in your school because you're just fantastic at that.

[86] See, there's a statement of fact in there of like, oh yeah, you kind of picture things in your brain.

[87] And then you go ahead and just make it.

[88] That's actually pretty cool.

[89] See, it's a statement of fact.

[90] It's not, there's no pressure on it.

[91] And I would write this down as well.

[92] It's helping your child with self -discovery.

[93] See, now this is a child who's been beating himself up because he's not the smartest one in the class.

[94] And maybe this child has a sibling that does better in school and things are easier for that child.

[95] And he tends to be in trouble a little bit more.

[96] So he doesn't do his best work and he shuts down a little bit.

[97] Well, now you're just making some statements of fact of things that he has done because he has built that complex Lego project.

[98] He has made things with his hands.

[99] he has created things and so you're not just making things up and you're not putting pressure you're validating and actually helping him recognize yeah i actually am really good at that i'm not making a big deal i'm not saying like oh my gosh you are the best Lego builder i've ever seen see your child's the little BS meter's going to go off and he's like up you're just being my mom or dad but when i just say things like oh that took a that took an awful lot of creativity in there It was really cool how you could do that because I can't do that.

[100] That's a statement of fact.

[101] And I would encourage you, in the month of June, let's start noticing the things that we've overlooked, those things that we should be seeing all school year long.

[102] Because the way to build a child's confidence is to build up their competence and to show them that they are competent.

[103] And the way to help them this falls when they go back to school to do better in school, to care about school is to see the relevance of their subjects in school to what they love doing in real life.

[104] Look, this kid, child, I believe he also loves Minecraft.

[105] Well, of all the video games, of course, he would like Minecraft because there's building in there.

[106] And that's a future engineer.

[107] There's so many great qualities in that.

[108] instead of just always complaining and worrying about our child and all he does is the video games and this and he does the minimum more work necessary and we just pile that on our child so he shuts down and just says well I'm a loser it's kind of what you've said I am instead I can spend this summer being completely honest and truthful with my child without denying anything that's negative and say oh no that you happen to be really good at that you know you remember when you were five you used to do that that's really cool we were just thinking about that and i apologize for overlooking that because your success in life is going to be dependent one day on doing what you love and what you're naturally good at see you've got you've got to give your child part of your job our job as parents is to give our kids perspective right and part of perspective is telling them the truth see if you're successful in life it's not because you're doing something that you're not naturally good at It's you're using your gifts and passions, and you just happen to be really good at that.

[109] And we don't do that with our kids.

[110] We try to fix them and fix everything that we think is wrong with them.

[111] So in the month of June, here is your homework.

[112] Let's start doing that.

[113] If we can help you with that, you reach out to us because this is a path that we took with Casey.

[114] He's a very confident and very competent young man. If you reach out to him, he will put together a customized package for you of our resources within your budget.

[115] or he'll say, no, I think just go to the website.

[116] That special is really good.

[117] He'll even send you the link or I'll put it in payments for you.

[118] But look for our specials.

[119] If we can help you with that, let us know.

[120] We're here to help.

[121] We want you to build up your child.

[122] We want you to enjoy your child.

[123] So if we can help with that, you let us know.

[124] Love you all.

[125] Bye -bye.