“Like a plan needs sunshine and water, children need encouragement.”
“These words were spoken often by Viennese psychiatrist Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs when he counseled parents in their visits to the family education centers he established throughout the world during the mid-20th century.
As the base of the word ‘encouragement’ is the word ‘courage’. Stimulating courage, reducing feelings of inferiority, implying faith in others, all represent ways of being encouraging.
Dr. Dreikurs also believed that every discouraged child had a parent who was discouraged in some area of his or her own life. When a parent becomes discouraged, he or she often has fewer words of encouragement to offer the child. Both parent and child can become swept up in a vicious cycle of negative expectations, decreasing the level of good will and mutual respect in their relationship.
To restore mutual respect in parent-child relations, parents can commit themselves to catching a son or daughter in the act of doing something well. Here are some tips on how to apply the process of encouragement to the relationship you have with your child:
- To encourage your child, it is often helpful to understand the particular challenges of life that he or she lacks the courage to face.
- Encouragement and discouragement are both contagious.
- Each of us is ultimately responsible for the outlook we select, that is, whether or not we approach problems with perceptions of confidence. However, we are all able to influence each other to become more or less encouraged.
- Praise serves to ‘elevate’ a person’s self esteem, promoting an upward climb to be above others. Encouragement serves to stabilize and ‘ground’ a person’s self esteem on a horizontal plane of moving further along in making contributions to the community as a whole.
- Implying genuine faith in someone’s ability to solve problems or make decisions can be very encouraging.
- Letting someone know how he or she has made a contribution, that is, “when you listened to me the other day, it really gave me a chance to hear myself … thanks,” often can be encouraging as well.
- Humour, when used appropriately to laugh with (not at) someone, can encourage the individual to put things into perspective. Humour, when used to avoid opening up the issue, usually is not encouraging.
Helping people to realize that they are worthwhile, not because of their status in relation to others, but because they are human beings whose participation in “social living” enriches the lives of others, can be one of the most important encouraging things one can do.
To encourage others, we need first, to encourage ourselves. It is not until we consider the interests of others that we become truly encouraged!” (p. 19-20)
Reference
Guttenberg, R. (2002). The Parent as Cheerleader. Gaithersburg, MD: Small Times Publications.