Happy (almost) Day of Giving Thanks Gray Stone Families!
This week’s Counselor’s Corner is a bit long but I believe it is worth your time to read.
On Thursday of next week, many of our families will gather to give thanks. It is a tradition that is based on the historical event of the first Pilgrims surviving the first harsh winter of their colony in the New World. As they gathered, I am quite sure they had many concerns and reasons to be less than thankful. Many had lost family members during the winter, most likely held fears of what might become of those that remained. Would they perish of some disease or unknown disaster? They had no way of knowing what was ahead, but they chose to focus on the good they saw and the hope they still held.
How does this relate to my tips for today? Well, I couldn’t help but think of our high school students, families, and staff. There is no shortage of issues, doubts, failings, challenges, desires, and more that give reason to complain or criticize. Just from a school aspect, here are a few that come to my mind:
1. Grades are not where they could be.
2. All assignments are not completed.
3. Notebooks are disorganized.
4. Materials are misplaced.
5. Books and supplies are broken.
6. Backpacks are a mess.
I’ll stop there. Of course, we could add in the attitudes of adolescents, the completion of chores, hygiene, caring for pets, and on and on. It is very easy to become focused on the negative and fall into the trap of continually pressuring our children to "get it together", "do better", "act their age”. In the day to day activity of raising a child, it is easy to lose sight of what is going right in their lives. It is easy to try to correct the inadequacies, while overlooking the successes. Today, and perhaps this week, allow me to help refocus our perspective a little bit.
We have to make a concerted effort to praise more than we do.
Why? There is a lot of benefit to praising our children. Maybe even more benefit in the praise than in the correction and critique. I have heard it said that it takes up to 7 positive statements to equal 1 negative. Just to balance the equation, we have to make 7 times as many positive observations as we do negative ones. The Harvard Business Review observed that the highest performing groups of workers received 5.6 instances of positive feedback for every 1 negative and they outperformed everyone else. What might happen if we adopted that with our children or ourselves? What might happen if that occurred in our classrooms? How would lives be different? Would we see the results we are looking for? Grades improving? Rooms kept cleaner? Harder working, more committed students? There truly is only one way to know. Try it. Maybe use the upcoming week to focus on doing this with your children, in your home, in your classroom, with your friends. Make a determined effort to identify the positive, say it, model it, praise it. Make a note each time you think of a negative and find 8 positive things to say before you speak the negative. It will take a lot of work to do this. We are so accustomed to saying the negative, correcting the mistake, training the expectation that it takes no effort to identify what went wrong. We have to work very hard to find what went right. But, try it for a week. See what happens.
After all, there is no shortage of things that go awry. We can always revert back to the other way. But we may just find in the week of giving thanks and expressing gratitude that we see more of what we desire than we ever truly thought possible. All because we decided to praise what went right, than to critique only what went wrong. We may find that we have far less to critique because the praise created the desire to fix what went wrong without anyone having to tell us to do so.
Happy Thanksgiving to you one and all. I am thankful that I get to work with your families. I get to see the smiling faces. I get to hear when your children scored well on a quiz or test. I get to high-five them for a job well done. I get to celebrate the little things. I get to see their faces light up with the slightest praise. Believe me, it can work. And, I know first hand that to do this does take effort. Plus, we all could use a little more praise in our lives. Every positive response always makes me want to do more. Not so I can get more praise, but because I know what I do was useful for you.
Until December…
Always Remember…You Matter To Me!
Mr. Morgan
