(EN)
(ES)
(IT)
Fostering qualities rather than correcting defects
It is much more effective and rewarding
Love is the best “generator” of qualities
True love
I pointed it out in a previous article:
- Only authentic love can discover the true greatness, the best qualities, and the more or less hidden aptitudes and potentialities of each of our children.
- And, without the need for excessive words, he puts them before the eyes of the child in question as the ideal to which that child must aspire.
True love helps the person you love grow,
revealing their qualities
and helping them give their best.
False love
On the contrary, when love is not deep enough, when it is “mixed” with a disordered self-love:
- We easily fail to see the best in our children.
- We give them the impression that they are worthless.
- And we push them, without realizing it, to adapt their behaviour to that “small” and degraded image, to “misbehave.”
An excessive and disordered love for oneself
prevents us from seeing the best in those around us
and even notices defects in them that they do not have.
Encourage and reward to develop qualities.
Not to mention the flaws!
The child is tremendously receptive, much more than we can imagine.
If we frequently tell him that he is rude, selfish, lazy, messy, “absent-minded,” he will believe it and truly be rude, selfish, and lazy, and he will not be in the least worried about leaving things out of place or continuing to forget important matters.
He will perceive himself, more or less confusedly, as a being full of defects.
The child tends to adopt
the image that parents have of him…
and act accordingly.
For the account that brings us
Furthermore, if we overly emphasize his shortcomings and give the impression that we are only there to scold him and reproach him for what he does wrong, he will continue to act badly, without realizing why he does it, just to continue receiving the attention he needs.
Scolding then becomes psychological reinforcement for those behaviours we want them to avoid: for their defects, not for their qualities.
Excessive attention to defects
contributes to reinforcing them, rather than diminishing them.
The other mirror effect or the effectiveness of highlighting qualities
Qualities, defects and self-esteem
In general, it is better for a boy to have a little too much self-confidence than too little.
- We will achieve this if we manage to make him know and feel that our love is completely unconditional: unconditional and unconditional.
- That, although we wish for them to give their best, according to the qualities each person possesses, we will never withdraw our affection if, due to a lack of strength, ability, or interest, or even ill will, they do not “live up” to expectations or commit an atrocity.
Therefore, if we see him slipping back into some defect, a word of encouragement will be more effective than throwing it in his face and humiliating him.
If your child falls into a defect,
it is better to encourage him than to humiliate him.
Discover your best qualities
In any case, as I have been pointing out, the key to a good education lies more in the area of qualities than in defects.
A couple of basic ideas on this:
- Showing our children that we trust in their qualities and virtues requires the prior effort of discovering them (with their specific names or with a specific description) and even writing them down and reviewing them frequently, or asking our spouse to “remind” us of them when things are looking bad.
- This is a tremendous incentive for homeschooling.
- Like any human being, our children feel an inner, not entirely conscious, impulse to put into practice the positive or negative opinion (qualities or defects) that we have of them and not to disappoint our expectations.
Let them know those qualities
A basic principle
We humans are the only beings who do not act strictly according to what we are, according to the qualities and defects that we actually have.
We act more according to what we believe we are, or even according to what we believe others believe us to be and what, therefore, we believe they expect of us.
And its consequences
Practical consequences for education?
- If we assume our son or daughter won’t clean their room before leaving home, we’ll be encouraging them to leave everything in the way.
- On the other hand, if we communicate with grace and mischief our conviction that he will leave his room tidy, and that this makes us very happy, it is very likely that, little by little, he will start putting his things away.
We men act more
on what we “think others think” of us
than on the qualities or defects
we actually have.
And the same goes for the remaining balances of qualities and defects.
- Letting him know that we are sure he can put more effort into his studies will eventually inspire him to make that effort.
- Taking for granted and showing our joy that, when we leave the house, they will lovingly care for their younger brother or sister will encourage them to pay attention to us.
With two conditions:
- Let what we take for granted be a task that they can actually accomplish, even if it requires effort, and not something absolutely impossible for him or her.
- Let our conviction be sincere, because we truly trust our children, and not merely a tactic to achieve goals that make our lives more comfortable.
As always, the fundamental principle in education is true love for our children, which leads us to see and love them a little better than they are at each moment of their lives.
To educate someone,
you have to love them
a little better than they are at every moment.
Loving them better than they are: reinforcing their qualities
Therefore, as I have just suggested, the key to education is to see and love at every moment the one we love a little better than he or she really is.
For this reason, if a child makes a correct observation, we should not be afraid to agree with him or her, even when it contradicts what we have just maintained or suggested.
Authority is not lost.
On the contrary, it is actually gained, since we do not base it on our points of view, which are always susceptible to change and rectification, but on the objective truth of what is proposed and on the personal quality that we highlight by recognizing without further ado that the son is more right than we are.
Educating consists in seeing and loving at every moment
the person we love
a little better than they really are:
in discovering their hidden qualities.
Encourage and praise based on their qualities
No praise in vain
When encouraging and praising, it is preferable to pay more attention to the effort made, based on the qualities and abilities of each child —different from all his siblings: unique —than to the result obtained.
In principle, contrary to an attitude that is all too common today, children should not be rewarded for having fulfilled a duty or for having succeeded in something, of any kind, if achieving it has not required a very special effort.
- To take perhaps the most classic example, a gift for good grades is usually not correct, but rather deforming.
- Good grades, along with our demonstration of joy at the result, should already give the child enough satisfaction.
As we will study later,
the goodness of what they have done should become,
for our children,
the best “reward” for their good deeds.
No prizes out of place
It is also not good to multiply gratifications excessively.
1. On the one hand, because the child is not taught to pursue what is good in itself, but rather the reward he receives:
- He is pushed to think more about himself (his reward) than about others and the good he can do for them.
- That is, he is being encouraged, unwittingly, to put disordered self-love before proper love for others (which is where any person achieves perfection and, as a result, is happy).
2. Also, when those “rewards” are omitted, the child will most likely feel disappointed.
- Rewarding things that don’t deserve it over and over again can be comforting and help us “get by.”
- But it amounts to transforming into a punishment all situations in which, quite rightly, such compensation is lacking.
Repeatedly rewarding what is not deserved
is equivalent to turning every situation
in which that reward is lacking into a punishment.
Real qualities : wanting the child to be good, not just feel good
Reinforce the qualities, sincerely expressing our joy
What I just pointed out does not mean that we do not show satisfaction when our children act as they should.
On the contrary, this expression of joy is the essential support to help him stay on the right path, especially when his child is very young.
For example, it is much more effective to congratulate a child on time for having already completed two of the ten problems that make up his homework, than to reproach him for “not having finished yet”, when with great difficulty and tremendous effort he has managed to solve the first five exercises without our encouragement or help.
When a child puts his or her talents into play,
we must express our joy.
But real qualities, not merely “felt” ones
However, we must try to achieve, gradually and without impatience, that the goals achieved serve in themselves as reinforcement for achieving the following ones.
And always put the fulfilment of your duty before, out of love, showing satisfaction or discontent.
In short, it is important not to forget a basic law:
- Educating someone is not about making them always happy and satisfied, by having all their whims covered.
- It is to help him bring out of himself (e-duce), with the essential effort on our part and his, all the wonder that he contains within him and that will take him to the fullness of his personal condition, making him – as a consequence – very happy.
Help him be good,
not necessarily feel good.
(To be continued)
Tomás Melendo, President of Edufamilia. http://www.edufamilia.com. [email protected]
EduFamilia
Edufamilia es una asociación sin ánimo de lucro, nacida en el año 2005. Su fundador, Tomás Melendo, advirtió que una mejora en la calidad de las familias facilitaría la resolución de bastantes de los problemas que aquejan a la sociedad de hoy. Y, apoyado siempre por su mujer, decidió lanzarse a esta aventura que cuenta con casi veinte años de vida y con múltiples ediciones de los distintos cursos formativos: Másteres y Maestrías, Expertos, cursos más breves, conferencias, ciclos culturales, seminarios y otros programas educativos. Aunque las primeras ediciones tuvieron carácter presencial, actualmente se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo por promover la infraestructura virtual para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y que la formación en torno a la familia alcance al mundo entero.
