[Shami]

My DH comes from a culture that says this A LOT. They say "good girl" or "naughty girl" all. the. time.
For the life of me I cannot come up with a way to explain it to my DH.
Please help me brainstorm.
I need a very simple, basic, succinct, clear way to explain why this isn't a helpful term.
Thanks a bunch!

 

[greenmama]

rather than letting her know he doesn't like a particular behaviour he is telling her that she IS naughty. If that is just who she is , there is no behaviour to change and alot of self esteem to heal.

 

[midnightwriter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenmama rather than letting her know he doesn't like a particular behaviour he is telling her that she IS naughty. If that is just who she is , there is no behaviour to change and alot of self esteem to heal.

ITA.

btw, you can edit your title if you click on "advanced" after you click on "edit".

 

[ilovebabies]

Explain to him that by calling her "good girl" or "naughty girl" or "bad girl" or whatever, that he is attacking her as a person, not the behavior. It's like calling someone "fat girl" or "skinny girl" or any number of things. She will live her life trying to seek approval from him because she wants to be a "good girl" in his eyes and unless she feels she is a good girl, she will assume she's not.

Instead, he should let her know how wonderful she is and how loved she is no matter what. Address the bad behavior, but do not attach it to her character. Address the good behavior too, but do not attach that to her character either. What I mean is if she does something "good", then tell her what a great job she did or how nice it was, or whatever, instead of saying, "Good girl!" Because what happens when she doesn't do that thing again? Then she's a bad girl? Adults know differently, but little children do not understand the difference.

This may not be the simplist terms... but maybe it can help some!

 

[Shami]

Thanks for the editing tip!
Of course!!! It's name calling! See I could have never come up with that by myself. I think dh will 'get' that it is like calling her skinny or fat.
Thanks to you all!

 

[SunKessed]

The compromise we've come up with for my In-Laws is that they can label an action AS LONG AS they explain the specific thing that they didn't like and offer an acceptable to them alternative...

They used to do it before she could talk and it was infuriating. They'd call her a "naughty girl" for doing things like wanting to touch the DVD player as a 1yo.

Once they saw that giving more information helped curb the behavior - they stopped labeling it all the time.

It started as"

1) "Oh, you're a naughty girl!"

2) "Oh - that was a naughty thing to do. It made a mess... Please do/play with X instead"

3) Oh - I see you made a mess. Let's clean that up. Can you get a cloth.