How To Correct Someone Correctly
August 27, 2009 by Louise Meyer
Filed under Life Improvement Tips
Recently one of my clients asked me how to handle her two-year old boy that was being naughty, without breaking his spirit.
I recommended that she invalidate his wrong action, without invalidating him.
I firmly believe that we are all basically good, and that bad behavior is actually not our nature. So, I told her to say, when he was being naughty: “That’s not my boy. I know my boy. My boy is nice”.
He’d been acting pretty awful that day. After our session she went home, and he was being mean to the cat. She did what I recommended, and the boy stopped hurting the cat and went off saying “Im a nice boy!” and was wonderful for the rest of the day.
This has been very successful with handling children and adults, too.
When you correct someone, you can target the bad action, not the person.
You can say to the child, (or co-worker, or husband or wife): “What you did was wrong”, or “That wasn’t OK”. “I love you, but it upsets me that you hit your brother.” “I know you are a good person, (child, husband, secretary, etc.., but that wasn’t the right thing to do”.
You will get a much better response and less tendency for the person to make errors, than if you tell them THEY are wrong, bad, etc.
Try it and let me know how it works for you.
Love,
Louise
I find that advice really terrible, I have a 3 yr old son and under no circumstances do i break his spirit when i correct him, but I am firm and straight to the point. I also work in a job where I constantly have to correct people, I would never condesend somebody or a child by speaking to them like that.
I think, Roisin, you need to reread the advice offered. Nowhere is there the slightest mention of “breaking” anything, much less anyone’s spirit. Or condescending to anything. Being “firm and straight to the point” is what the advice is about, yet it’s very clear that what’s being addressed is the action, not the child, which is the entire point. This allows the child to look at what he’s done, and learn that there are right and wrong actions, without invalidating who he is. The action gets corrected, while reinforcing the basic love for the child. This is a winning approach, if you ask me. I have a three year old friend who gets corrected as needed and this simple approach works like a dream. And he is plenty mischievous, is helped in learning right actions from wrong, and remains full of life and love. This is a winning way to approach raising children!
this is pretty much what I used on our kids, they turned out to be pretty great kids. “I love you dearly, I just don’t like what you are doing right now” Works well too.
Roisin I find it interesting that you started off your response to Louise by attacking her “terrible” advice and then saying that you are never condescending. I know you are a good person Roisin but that wasn’t the right thing to do.