Motherly: 10 powerful phrases to tell your child instead of 'good job'

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Posted 5 years ago,

1 minute read

Focus on your child’s abilities, strengths, qualities—things you want to encourage as they help our children become more confident, feel more capable, able to take risks, to rally from mistakes, to move through struggle.

To know “I can really use my brain” sets a child up to work through a tough homework problem in an empowering way. Hearing “You are so smart!” can leave a child at a loss when they don’t do well on a test, or when they can’t figure out a problem. Using “You CAN be” instead of “You ARE…” gives a child the chance to be something else.

Describing what you see rather than praising is essential for our children to grow intrinsically motivated and to feel authentically affirmed. Here's how that can look:

"You chose the red frilly dress! And you buttoned all those buttons by yourself. That took a lot of work."

"Wow. That took a lot of brain work to come home with 100% on your assignment. I bet you feel really good about how your hard work paid off."

"I see blue, green, black and yellow in your picture. You chose to use a LOT of the yellow! And look how you went round and round with your marker to make so many circle shapes."

"Look how strong your muscles can be! What effort it takes to carry the bag all the way up the stairs. I appreciate your help."

"What a commitment you've had to your training. I can see how happy you are to make the team at school!"

"Math can be hard! Look at all the problems you've accomplished. You've concentrated on this for a long time."

"Your friend is happy you shared your toy! What a kind thing to do."

Motherly: 10 powerful phrases to tell your child instead of ‘good job’

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Learn more about the Compositive education model