A friend shared a video with me recently that had me thinking about the value of positive affirmations.
So many times, I catch myself doing the same things I vowed never to do as a parent (before I was a parent), criticizing my child, or pointing out when she could have done something better, or (the worst) comparing siblings to one another. Raised in an Indian household, the standard is always to do better – that old joke about an Asian kid getting a 98 per cent on a test and being asked what happened to the other two per cent? That one’s 100 per cent true. While I was constantly told about how amazing my friends were at school or sports, they were apparently all told that I was great for helping around the house. Few Indian parents gave kudos and praise to their own child.
The worst, I know myself as the oldest sibling, is constantly being held to a higher standard, and told that as the oldest, you have to be the responsible one, the one that has to set an example. As the oldest kid, I know that standard just sucks.
Maybe it’s little wonder then that our oldest daughter has always been our toughest kid to guide and help through life, given to social anxiety, dark moods and insecurities. Maybe it’s just her personality, or maybe it’s because we made all the parenting mistakes with her, and have done better with the second two guinea pigs. Or maybe this is just a harbinger of teenage-hood, in which case, I consider myself forewarned.
But when a friend shared a video with me of a father starting the morning by telling his daughter that she was special, that she was beautiful, that she was confident, that she was great, and getting her to repeat it, I thought, maybe instead of pointing out all the ways my daughter could be doing something better or looking at life more positively or compared to her brother or sister, maybe I should try some positive affirmations with her instead.
So on a Saturday morning, I called my daughter to my side and mentioned how her father had seen her not respond to two kids who had said hello to her.
“But I did say hi,” she protested, clearly ready for me to tear into her for being rude.
Instead, I said, “I just wanted to tell you that I want you to feel confident in yourself – you are nice to people, you are beautiful inside and outside, you are sweet, you are a wonderful human.”
She had been sure she was going to get criticized, and instead, had been praised and I watched the whole change of disappointment and self-defeat bloom instead to happiness on her face.
“Thanks mom,” she said with a big smile, giving me a hug.
Buoyed by this small success - and convinced that I missed my calling as a child therapist - I decided to try the positive affirmations again this morning, as we prepared for school.
I wrestled my daughter out of bed, and held her half-sleeping form in my lap, and told her, “You are nice to others, you are wonderful, you are special, you are beautiful, you are confident.”
She lifted her sleepy head, half-turned to me, and said – and I quote: “Meh.”
Parenting, it’s constantly one step forward, two steps back. But it’s a process.
