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  • What My Daughter Taught Me About Sandwiches

What My Daughter Taught Me About Sandwiches

December 17, 2012 — 7 Comments

My daughter came running up to me all smiles and big eyes, wanting to show me what she’d done to clean up her room.

beautiful little girl

© svitlana10 – Fotolia.com

This is an unusual thing in our house. My kids would rather live in chemical dumps than in pristine spaces, but we recently informed her that to earn back some privileges, she needed to show us she was mature enough to handle them. We assigned her the task of keeping her room neat, clean and tidy.

I walked in, looked around and was impressed.

I said, “You know, if you pick up these things over here in this box, and take care of those doll clothes under that chair there, and…”

She had left the room trying not to cry.

Facepalm.

I called her back and met her in the Jack & Jill bathroom she shares with her brother. I got down on my knees, looked her in the eye, and said:

“I’m so sorry, honey. I did that really poorly. May I start over, please?”

She nodded.

“I am so impressed with what you’ve done in there. Your room looks absolutely beautiful. Everything has been put away and you took so much care in straightening things out and lining up your dolls. It looks wonderful and I’m just blown away by it.”

She smiled and gave me a big hug.

We walked back into her room and I spent another few minutes pointing out some other specific things she did that I noticed and talked up how much nicer her life would be thanks to these improvements. Only then did I try again:

“Now, what you’ve done is great. To make it absolutely perfect? We just need to take care of a couple things.”

This time, as I pointed out a pile of rubbish near her bed and desk, she said she was planning to take that downstairs and throw it out. Then she had an idea. “Can I get a bag, put this in it and then empty the rest of the trash cans upstairs and downstairs too?”

What a difference!

See, I first focused on the areas for improvement, not on the accomplishment she had made. This left her thinking that she’d not done well enough and wounded her big heart.

Instead, remembering everything I’ve learned about “praise sandwiches”, I realized that principle applies to my home as well as my work.

So I wedged my pointers between two big old slices of praise and she was happy beyond measure, and took all my ideas to heart. And added some of her own!

In Family, Leadership, Uncategorized ,
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  • http://www.mattmcwilliams.com/ Matt McWilliams

    Should not have read this at this hour. Now I am hungry.

    Oh…I meant great post!

    I had a feeling where this was going and loved the story Bret.

    I think of the same thing when my daughter mispronounces a word. I can’t let is slide. “Bape” is not what you find growing on a vine in little bunches. Nor is the “hun” what shines during the day. But I praise her for all that shes does right and gently correct her pronunciation. She is getting better every day!

    • http://bretwortman.com/ Bret Wortman

      I swear, I was thinking of you when it happened, Matt.

      When my kids make a grammatical error, I remember how my mother used to do it. She’d repeat back what I said as a question, or paraphrase it to show she was listening, but she’d subtly correct me as she did so.

      “He doesn’t talk good.”

      “Oh, he doesn’t speak well, does he?”

      “I rided my bike to Billy’s house.”

      “Wow, you rode your bike all the way to Billy’s? You must be tired!”

      Kids can really be a great source of leadership tricks & techniques. And vice-versa.

      • http://www.mattmcwilliams.com/ Matt McWilliams

        My dad’s mom was my grammar coach. It went like this:

        “Me and Joey went to the store.”

        “Joey and I went to the store.”

        “You too Grandmommy?”

        • http://bretwortman.com/ Bret Wortman

          Ha! Wish I’d had the cojones to do that with my mother!

  • http://caroldublin.com/ Carol Dublin

    Great post Bret – such good reminders. I am so prone to just correct, that it’s great to have the reminder to give the praise as well.

    • http://bretwortman.com/ Bret Wortman

      In my case, she reminded me by running from the room crying, so I guess God realized I needed a bit more than a nudge to figure it out. :-)

  • http://www.JeffDrummer.com/ Jeff Jones

    Good word! I don’t want to have the kid who grows us with a huge complex and has to go to therapy because I was too condemning. I need to remember how fragile they are, and remember that people are all the same. Even when they are 60, they are still looking for a pat on the back and approval. That is being human.