Positive Remarks

Whenever I stepped home from work, my girls will be rushing to greet me and tell me what the other party has done, how one misbehaved at school, at home, what hurt they have caused to each other, I would say...hmm all negative remarks. All this while I've been handling them like "Hmm... not right to say this, not right to do this, hmm.... jeh jeh/mei mei misbehaved....".

Hubby once read a book that we should try as much to use positive words and sentence when talking to our children, i.e if we say "Don't run", the child will actually captured the last word which is "run", so don't be surprise when you ask your child to stop running and all he/she did was to run even faster. So one should try words like "Be careful", "Be slower" so that they get the last word instead.

So on last Monday, while I took dinner, as usual the girls came complaining about each other to me, suddenly it strikes me that I should use another method to deal with them. Below is our conversation:

Me: Hello jeh jeh and mei mei, remember Ms. Tang (their teacher) says that we should use our mouth to speak good words? Now think of something good or nice that you can say about each other.

Mei mei & Jeh jeh: Startled...... (I think in their mind they must be thinking - oh oh don't expect mummy to say this, alamak, what to say har??)

Me: Come on, I'm sure there's a lot of nice things you could think of, for example mei mei queues while entering class today, jeh jeh listens to the teacher in class etc...

Mei mei: Hmm...Jeh jeh behave well in school today.

Jeh jeh: Ar...Mei mei queued in class today.

Mei mei: Jeh jeh did not beat me today.

Jeh jeh: Mei mei kept her toys today.

Me: That's very nice... now think of something to say to daddy when he's back

Mei mei: I will say "Welcome home daddy"

Jeh jeh: Thank you daddy for giving us money to buy toys

Mei mei: Mummy, you are so pretty

Mummy: This is a good start, we should do this everyday hor... speak only nice words to each other OK?

Both: Giggling, ok..

So yesterday, we were at the dining table and as usual they "attacked" each otherlar... then I gave them the "say nice things" look, they automatically changed to something positive.... LOL... this is good, parents should try this and I believe all of should think of nice and positive remarks if ever we want to express any.