Praise your wife and children 10 times more than you correct them.

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Praise your wife and children 10 times more than you correct them.
by: Garr Ovard Profile Share with a friend
Friday, February 12, 2010

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Photo: Garr Ovard (captured with my iPhone)

I can’t take credit for the title of this z-page because it’s one of Jim-Bob Duggar’s 10 tips for a healthy and happy marriage, but I do think it’s some of the best advice around.

If you don’t know who Jim-Bob Duggar is just follow the link provided with this article. He and his wife, Michelle, have 19 kids.

Back to the praise. It’s not the praising my wife and children part of this advice that got my attention, it’s the idea of 10 times more praise than correction. Seriously, think about that for a moment.

Just tonight my wife and I returned from a Friday night date and started our routine of making sure the younger kids were in bed and the older ones were under control. When I finally made it to our room my wife informed me that the Duggars have a 19th child. I Googled “Duggar Family” and quickly got the scoop. Then I stumbled across Jim-Bob’s marriage tips. When I reached tip #9 my mind started to flood with thoughts about my interaction with our kids tonight…

“Don’t forget to pick up the paper airplanes, I don’t want them left out like last night.”

“Put your socks away, I don’t want them left out on the floor.”

“Next time obey your mother when she says not to move the furniture.”

And the list continues…

Granted, none of my requests to my kids were unreasonable or spoken in anger, but I realized I hadn’t slowed down enough to really connect with them or show interest in the things that mattered to them.

I walked out of our room and did a double take. There were my boys, 10 and 13, flying gazillions of paper airplanes through the house like there was no tomorrow. I could have found another 5 things to ask them NOT to do without much effort. Instead, I just watched them for a moment. Then I told them how awesome their planes were. My ten year old proceeded to show me how one of them looped. It was actually quite an impressive plane.

“I’m amazed that you could remember how to fold that plane,” I remarked. “You did that from memory, right?”

“Yep,” came the reply. “And watch this!”

Then my older son walked up beside me and showed me an inflatable cube he had folded out of paper in a matter of minutes. It was really cool. “Wow! You’re finished already?” I remarked. “Yeah, it was easy,” he replied in his cool tweenage sort of way. “I can see that you guys need something more challenging,” I observed.

When I finally made it back to our room I was thinking about how easy it is to constantly ask our kids to do things. Not that asking them to do things is bad, but if that’s all you do your kids are bound to feel like you don’t care about them. And even if you consciously praise your kids like I do, praising them 10 times more than you correct them takes some serious effort!

Not two minutes later my oldest son knocked on our door. I invited him in and decided not to rush him off to bed. He showed me two more paper cubes he had folded. He now had origami cubes in 3 sizes. I expressed interest in him and told him how cool his cubes were. He said “goodnight” and went to bed.

My wife then showed me a little box of candy she had purchased for the kids for Christmas. “They’ll like that. I don’t know what I’d do without you this year,” I said. Now, my wife doesn’t need correcting but she does need praise, so you can be sure I’ll be thinking about how I can praise her more.

Because I’m a man of action I’m challenging all of you to do the same thing I’m trying to do. Start giving your family 10 times more praise than correction this month. If it seems impossible to do for a month, do it for a week. If you can’t do it for a week, do it for a day. If you can’t do it for a day, do it for an hour, and take it from there.

Don’t forget to check out these links to learn more about the Duggar family:

The Duggars on Discovery Health
(You can find Jim-Bob’s 10 marriage tips here.)

The Duggar Family Website

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	Garr Ovard z-pages published: 47 followers: 14 Sign in to follow
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