Doood
My girl, the one who struggles with math, was able to solve "X + 10 + 6 + 15 = 34" for X tonight, by herself, with no coaching or correction. It was after an hour of patient teaching and praise. She might not be able to do it on demand tomorrow or next week, but I am guessing with only minor correction and reinforcement the next time won't be as hard and soon she'd be doing it on her own entirely on demand.
Sweet.
I told her I was insanely proud of her. She earned an award and I told her I was so proud of her I was going to tell her teacher (and did). She also asked me to tell mom (so I CC'd her on the email to mom).
I don't give her false praise, EVER. I figure that's the fastest way ever to loose her belief in me. Now she sometimes puts me in a bind "Daddy, do you like my singing". I come back with "I love the energy and excitement you bring to it and I'm really glad you sing so much. I love how much you sing in the shower". She's wise to that trick and has in the past tried to pin me down, but I don't lie to her. But I always find things I do like and can say good things. But I also tell her when I DO like her singing. She has two styles. One is clearly what they're teaching her in music class and it is very pretty. Then there's the pop star singing. We've defined "pretty music" and "mouth noise". And that I really do like her pretty music. And that when she makes mouth noise I'm glad for it too, but it's her energy and enthusiasm that I like. This way I don't lie to her, and I don't praise what I don't like.
I want her to trust me.
Because tonight I gave her more praise than I ever have. We didn't do high fives, we did a high hundred. She didn't just earn giving me a raspberry (something she knows I don't like, and is something that she gets to "get me" with, so she loves that and is one of my many methods of keeping her happy and focused and motivated), she earned giving me 15 raspberries - tiny ones. She traded 5 of the baby raspberries to give the biggest nastiest one she could possibly give me (limited to one deep breath). I looked her straight in the eyes and told her, with all of my heart, how proud I was of her tonight. And she believed me.
I also said "so, was it better for me to be proud or grumpy"? "was it better when you got your good attitude on and got proud, or when you had your head up your rear and got grump"? "was it better to do a fantastic job and focus and get proud, or not focus and get grump". You can guess the answers.
I was also really happy last week with how quickly she picked up on arrays and equal groups of multiply. She's no expert or whiz at it, but honestly she did great picking it up.
She also reported to me that she had her goal of 85 for her math grade and she that made like an 88 on the latest math test (on multiply), so she met her goal. She got high fives on that. Sure, I'd have preferred higher, but she was proud she met her goal. Score kid.
Sweet.
I told her I was insanely proud of her. She earned an award and I told her I was so proud of her I was going to tell her teacher (and did). She also asked me to tell mom (so I CC'd her on the email to mom).
I don't give her false praise, EVER. I figure that's the fastest way ever to loose her belief in me. Now she sometimes puts me in a bind "Daddy, do you like my singing". I come back with "I love the energy and excitement you bring to it and I'm really glad you sing so much. I love how much you sing in the shower". She's wise to that trick and has in the past tried to pin me down, but I don't lie to her. But I always find things I do like and can say good things. But I also tell her when I DO like her singing. She has two styles. One is clearly what they're teaching her in music class and it is very pretty. Then there's the pop star singing. We've defined "pretty music" and "mouth noise". And that I really do like her pretty music. And that when she makes mouth noise I'm glad for it too, but it's her energy and enthusiasm that I like. This way I don't lie to her, and I don't praise what I don't like.
I want her to trust me.
Because tonight I gave her more praise than I ever have. We didn't do high fives, we did a high hundred. She didn't just earn giving me a raspberry (something she knows I don't like, and is something that she gets to "get me" with, so she loves that and is one of my many methods of keeping her happy and focused and motivated), she earned giving me 15 raspberries - tiny ones. She traded 5 of the baby raspberries to give the biggest nastiest one she could possibly give me (limited to one deep breath). I looked her straight in the eyes and told her, with all of my heart, how proud I was of her tonight. And she believed me.
I also said "so, was it better for me to be proud or grumpy"? "was it better when you got your good attitude on and got proud, or when you had your head up your rear and got grump"? "was it better to do a fantastic job and focus and get proud, or not focus and get grump". You can guess the answers.
I was also really happy last week with how quickly she picked up on arrays and equal groups of multiply. She's no expert or whiz at it, but honestly she did great picking it up.
She also reported to me that she had her goal of 85 for her math grade and she that made like an 88 on the latest math test (on multiply), so she met her goal. She got high fives on that. Sure, I'd have preferred higher, but she was proud she met her goal. Score kid.