[Mother Therapy] How to praise children

 

Do you praise your kids often? There are so many moments in raising children when you realize the importance of praise. Saying “Good job!” can be a huge motivator for a child, and it can spur them on to do something else. There was even a best-selling book called “Praise Makes Whales Dance,” so the positive effects of praise are huge.

However, praise can also be used in the wrong way, and it can easily lead to looking for results and avoiding difficult or challenging tasks. There's an experiment with elementary school children called ‘the counterattack of praise’, which shows that when you praise for results, children will do things only to get praised, so they will no try to do difficult things, they will do only things that they are good at, and they will do things for the results.

When you praise, it's best to focus on the behavior itself, the effort and the process, because then the behavior is more likely to be repeated and lead to good results. There are many ways to praise, but here are three effective ones that I'd like to share with you.

First, praise immediately. It's harder to remember something later, so if you do it right away when you see it, no matter how small, it becomes associated with a positive emotion and the child can remember the behavior and repeat it. But to do it right away, you need to observe and pay attention to your child often.

Secondly, don't use unnecessary words. For example, when a child gets a good grade on a test, you don't want to say, “Oh, you got a good score this time, you got lucky or what?”, which can be confusing whether it is a praise or not. You want to emphasize the effort and the process, saying, “I can see you worked hard, and it paid off, good job.”

Third, focus on the process rather than the outcome. Results are important, but praising the behavior and process encourages the repetition of the behavior and naturally leads to good results. For example, when your child tries a new activity, instead of saying, “Oh... You're so good at this,” focusing on the outcome, you can say, “This must have been hard for you because it's new, but you didn't give up and kept trying.” Praise the process of creating a good result. By emphasizing the process, not just the result, your child will feel that their efforts were truly recognized and they will be more likely to try something again next time.

At the end of the day, praise is a tool to help your child feel like they're doing a good job. If you only praise them for the outcome, they'll only choose what's easy and familiar, but if you praise them for the process and effort, they'll be more likely to try something new or keep making efforts. Praise isn't just for the sake of praise. Try using praise today to encourage your child to keep doing what they like or what they aim for.

                                   https://youtu.be/kHfO9z1qypw?si=eZXsyMszf13KP6iM

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[Mother Therapy] The benefit of parents’ stepping in when needed

 

What do you think about parents' close attention to their children when raising them? Is it necessarily a bad thing? There's a lot of talk these days about respecting your child's wishes, so if you're teaching and guiding them, that's a poor parenting method, but I don't think that's necessarily true.

Of course, it can be counterproductive to interfere too much in a child's life when they're forming their own ideas, but on the other hand, there are times when a parent's attention to detail can be invaluable, especially when a child is adjusting to a new environment or struggling to figure out how to relate.

For example, a first grader who is new to elementary school may not know how to relate to their friends, teachers, or school in general, and if you give them small reminders like, “Smile and say hi to your friends,” or “Listen to the teacher in class and raise your hand if you want to speak up,” they will feel less intimidated and less likely to be misunderstood. It's a way of teaching them how to deal with awkward situations before they ever have to face them, and it also helps them to feel more confident and secure if you're paying attention to them and praising and encouraging them when they do something well, no matter how small.

The same strategy can be applied with adolescence, when a child is going through an unstable period, and if you're able to stay on top of things, quietly intervene only when needed, and offer praise and encouragement, they feel that you really care about them. It's important not to be too intrusive, but to be there when they need you.

Just as there is no one right way to live a life, there is no one right way to raise a child. Giving attention isn't always a bad thing, and it's important to use it appropriately, depending on the child's personality, situation, and environment. A parent's presence, with advice and praise when needed, can help a child adapt to new environments, feel more secure, and develop healthy psychology.

                                   https://youtu.be/suHhnTRA4WI?si=wRaaf8K54jKYgE0V

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[Mother Therapy] Doing well at work ruins relationships? The truth is...

 

How are you balancing work and relationships? We can't live our lives without work and relationships. Work gives us fulfillment and financial security, and relationships make our lives richer and warmer. But when we focus on only one of the two, the other falters, and that's when problems arise. So finding a balance between work and relationships is the most important thing. I think we're all trying to find a balance between the two.

But the truth is, we also realize that it's very energy draining when we try to juggle work and relationships. I think it's important to never forget to take care of yourself in this situation, because if you're too exhausted, you're not going to be able to do your job well, and you're going to be overly sensitive in your relationships.

For example, when you're working hard, stress can build up, and if you don't release it in time, what happens? You can become irritable with your family or have conflicts with your coworkers, so it's really, really important to have your own personal healing practice, because taking care of yourself and balancing your mind and body will lead to better results in the end in both areas.

In my case, another important thing is to clarify my priorities between work and relationships. Once I sort out what goals I want to achieve and who I value most in my relationships, I'm clearer about where I want to spend my energy and less confused about the process.

For example, sometimes, work might be my top priority. If it's time to complete an important project, I'll talk to my family about it and share my schedule ahead of time to get their understanding. On the flip side, if there's an important family event or occasion, I might adjust my work schedule to prioritize family time. I think being flexible and understanding each other's circumstances is the key to finding balance.

At the end of the day, balance between work and relationships is something you create for yourself, no one else can do it for you, and it's something you have to decide for yourself. It's not easy to balance work and relationships, so instead of trying to do it perfectly overnight, why not start by making small changes that you can make, so that you can do your job well and maintain good relationships with the people you care about.

And don't forget that nothing is more important than taking care of your body and mind, because you can achieve your goals at work and maintain good relationships with people only when you are healthy.

                                 https://youtu.be/r1OYhoPVJUs?si=zccQKxR02mUd7SeW

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[Mother Therapy] Build skills through hands-on experience

 

Before we do anything, we all think a lot about it: ‘Is this the right thing to do? What if I fail? What if something goes wrong? Am I really capable of doing this? etc. This can make you hesitate to try something, and if you have negative comments from people around you, you can get into a deeper rut. “Stick to what you're doing,” ‘That's not for you,” “Do you really think you can do this?” and so on. 

It's often assumed that a long period of reflection minimizes failure, and there's nothing wrong with that, but only if you have a clear purpose and goal. More often than not, overthinking just takes time, and you may miss the boat.

In fact, whether you execute after a long deliberative process or a short deliberative process, you're going to keep running into new and different problems along the way. No matter what you do, you're going to run into unexpected things, and a long deliberation process doesn't mean you won't run into problems. So once you've decided to do something, the fastest way to get to your goal is to take action before it's too late.

Of course, taking action doesn't mean you'll achieve your goal, but the experience you gain from every step you take adds to your skill set. You gain experience, and that experience is something you can't create with anything else. You don't get it by thinking about it, you don't get it by reading a lot of books, or you don't get it by taking advice.

If you have a great mentor through all of this, that's great. They can teach you skills and give you tips to solve problems in execution, but even if you don't, you can still get experience, and you can add to your knowledge, and you can put things together to make it your own. So if you're thinking about doing something today, why don't you stop thinking about it and just do it? It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be amazing, you can start small, and as you gain experience, it will become a tremendous skill and solidify the path you want to take.

                               https://youtu.be/WNdRfbxRV6Y?si=GzEsDEh1_U1FHwCS

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[Mother Therapy] How do you solve problems? Building problem-solving skills

 

How do you deal with problems when they arise? Our lives are a series of problems and solutions. Sometimes in relationships, sometimes in our minds, sometimes in our work or in our daily lives, we are constantly faced with big and small problems that make us wonder, “Why is this happening to me?”

We all have different attitudes and ways of dealing with problems - some of us are good at staying calm and finding solutions, while others' first instinct is to avoid or run away. Are problem-solving skills something you're born with? Or can it be cultivated? I believe that problem-solving skills can be cultivated, just like a muscle that you develop through consistent exercise. It's a skill that gets stronger with experience and practice, just like physical training.

So how do you develop problem-solving skills? You can start by being open to new experiences. It's about stepping out of your comfort zone, embracing diversity, drawing a lot of simulations, learning something new that you don't normally do, trying new tools, meeting people from different fields and hearing about their experiences. The more you expose yourself to different perspectives and experiences, the broader your view of a problem and the better your ability to find a solution. I'm not suggesting that you go out on a limb and try something risky. It can be difficult at first, but it gives you the opportunity to see things from different perspectives.

Even if you've practiced looking at things from different perspectives, it's not always going to work every time, so it's important to stop and take a break when things aren't working. If something is stuck and it doesn't work out right away, instead of holding on to it, I'll stop and walk away and go for a walk or get a cup of tea. If it doesn't work out, I'll try to let go of everything and look away from it for a little while, or I'll do something easier that's quicker to solve. After I've satisfied myself by doing something easy, I'll come back to the stuck problem, and sometimes I'll see it again with a much lighter heart and find a clue to the solution.

The important thing is to find a method that works for you and stick with it. Problem-solving skills don't happen overnight, but if you keep an open mind, embrace new experiences, and practice consistently, you'll definitely get better at it. You may be stumped, upset, and frustrated in the moment when faced with a problem, but you'll soon find yourself able to shift gears and deal with it flexibly and effectively.

                                  https://youtu.be/228-hqW-DbQ?si=tr22gtQJ1N850f9j

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[Mother Therapy] Passive income! Feels good just thinking about it?

 

What do you think when you hear the term “passive income”? Many people probably think of “income that comes without effort,” but does it really exist in the real world?

Many people look at someone's success or easy life and think, “They must be lucky,” or “They must have been born with it,” or “They must have found the right spouse.” However, it is more likely that there's been a lot of trial and error, hard work, and investment of time behind their apparent success that we don't see, and we don't really look deeply into that process, so it's easy to misunderstand or stereotype.

For example, when we see someone earning a steady return on their investments, we say, “Wow, they just sit back and make easy money.” But how many failures did they have to go through, how much did they learn, how much did they prepare, how many hours of consistent effort did they put in? We don't see that invisible effort, or we don't want to see it, and we make a lot of judgments based on the visible results, but that's probably an arrogant judgment because we haven't done it. If you've ever put in the effort and time to get something, you know how hard the process can be.

We've all heard the saying that hard work never betrays you, and while it doesn't always guarantee a positive outcome, it does leave a mark. More importantly, the hard work you put in should be something that allows you to grow and have a positive impact on others.

It's easy to look at someone else's success and feel envy or jealousy. But what if you could channel that emotion into something more positive? You could learn from what they've gone through, apply it to yourself, and find your own path. If someone is making progress, cheering them on has a healthy effect on you. On the flip side, harboring negative feelings and tearing someone down is just a reflection of your own inadequacies. Tearing down someone else's success isn't going to improve your own situation, and you're spending energy where it doesn't belong.

Many people look at successful people and say they “got lucky,” but most of them didn't get there in one fell swoop. They are more likely to have worked day in and day out for years, facing failure after failure and challenge after challenge. What looks like stability and ease may seem like a windfall, but more often than not, it's the result of hard work. Why not learn from their process and apply it to your own, so that you can grow through new challenges, too?

                                   https://youtu.be/228-hqW-DbQ?si=tr22gtQJ1N850f9j

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[Mother Therapy] The 'Stability Formula' Working Moms Should Know

 

A friend of mine who is a working mother told me that she wants to continue pursuing her career, but it's not easy because she worries about her child every day. Her child is still young, so she relies on her family for child care, but sometimes she can’t get help when she needs it. She loves her career, but she constantly wonders if her working outside home is affecting her child and if the choices she makes will have a negative impact on her family.

I think every working mother has to deal with the same thing at one point or another. If you're constantly feeling unstable, it can have a negative impact on both your work and your family, and you can't focus on either one. In the end, the more unstable you are, the more likely it is that your family will be unstable as well. So, what's the most important thing? You guessed it - your own psychological stability. If you're a working mother who wants to pursue your values through career, you need to think about how important your psychological stability is.

It's really not easy to pursue your career while maintaining a family and raising children. As a working mom, you're trying to make sure that both your work and your family are stable, and I think it's safe to say that the most important thing is how stable your psychology is. If you're unstable yourself and you're trying to make your family and children feel stable, you are likely to end up with conflicts and anxiety that you didn't intend to have. You're trying to make them feel stable when you're unstable yourself, so you're either repressing yourself or forcing yourself on them.

Another friend of mine wanted to be perfect at both work and raising her child, so she worked hard at work and tried to spend more time with her child at the same time, but there were many days when she was disappointed in herself because it was difficult to fully immerse herself in both work and home, and she blamed herself a lot. She was disappointed and blamed herself, and she didn't know what to do, so she kept repeating the same routine. She kept thinking about her child even while she was working, so it was difficult to concentrate on work, and even when she was spending time with her child, she became anxious about work. Finally, she quit her job, but quitting her job didn't solve all the problems either.

Eventually, she realized that she was unstable psychologically, and from then on, she started by first recognizing her own psychological state and then tried to recover. She was able to approach new things in a more relaxed way, both for his child and for herself. If a child sees anxiety in a mother's expression, it is transmitted to the child, so the child is affected by the psychological state of the parent and has a similar emotional state. In fact, your own stability leads to the stability of your family.

Of course, it can be harder when you don't have people around you to help you, but there are things you can do within your resources and your environment, depending on how you think about it. Don't limit yourself by saying you can't do this or you can't do that. It's not always easy to put yourself first as a working mom, but I want you to remember that your own psychological well-being is the most important starting point. When you are stable, your family is stable, and your child is able to see you and feel psychologically stable forming a virtuous cycle. That's when we can truly pursue our values and meanings of life with balance.

                                https://youtu.be/sI8iynWBBwM?si=IfPHU7bKuRIpYgWF

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[Mother Therapy] Your life, your choice (Psychological dependence and independence)

What was the first choice you made this morning? I briefly debated whether to sleep in for another 10 minutes or get up right away, but I chose to get up right away, which allowed me to complete the morning routine I had planned the day before, with the added bonus of feeling good about myself.

From the moment we wake up in the morning till the end of the day, we make a lot of choices, some of which we make on our own, but a surprising number of them are influenced by others. We often make decisions based on what our family, friends, and coworkers think of us, or what they expect us to do.

While it's important to respect and consider other people's opinions, we often lose sight of what we really want in the process. What's more, being overly dependent on others makes it harder to live our lives to the fullest, as we become more dependent on their reactions than our own decisions. 

So why do we need to be able to make our own choices and not lean on others? Leaning on others for a moment can be comforting and supportive, but if it's repeated, you're constantly asking someone for many parts of your life. You can become dependent on them for every single decision including the smallest matters, which can make them feel overwhelmed, which can lead to conflicts and make it harder to maintain a healthy relationship. 

Being psychologically dependent means that you've surrendered your power to other people, and you're at their mercy, which means that a lot of your life is dictated by their reactions, and you're bound to feel a sense of loss and helplessness when they change or leave, making it harder for you to live your life on your own terms. 

Psychological independence, on the other hand, is about valuing yourself and living by your own standards, not being swayed by other people's opinions. This doesn't mean that you should cut off relationships with others; it's important to cherish and protect relationships that meet your standards. The key is to understand the difference between dependence and independence clearly and to develop the ability to make your own choices.

Everyone can make their own choices, and although it's not easy, you can make a difference with time and effort. Once you've achieved psychological independence, economic independence will naturally follow, and you'll no longer depend on others for happiness. You can create your own happiness and share it with those around you.

People say that our life is formed based on how we look at it, and we can choose how we react in every moment, so it's all up to us. We have the power to make ourselves unhappy, or we have the power to make ourselves happy, so why spend energy on making ourselves unhappy? Wouldn't it be better to use that energy to choose happiness?

              https://youtu.be/M5XQSVMyRAg?si=DCufzUVznnP8wvb8

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[Mother Therapy] Starting is half the battle, but only half.

Is there something new you're trying these days? We start a lot of new things in our lives, whether it's studying, taking up a new sport or hobby, or dreaming up a business. For each of these endeavors, we set goals, both big and small, but do we achieve them all at once? I think I rarely achieve my goals all at once. No matter how exciting the start, there are bound to be trials and errors along the way.

Take a business, for example: you start out thinking, “I'm going to launch a product that's so perfect and so good, it's going to be a hit!” and then it doesn't turn out the way you thought it would, and if it does, it's most likely the result of a lot of trial and error and refinement.

The problem is, we know this, but we don't apply it to ourselves, and that's where a lot of people get stuck. They only see what they want to see, and they envy someone else's success and want to emulate it. It might get you started, but it's not sustainable, because you're not looking at the effort and the process, but you're just looking at the outcome, and you're comparing yourself with others.

You may say reasons why you can't keep doing it - “I'm not talented enough,” “I don't think I can do that no matter what I do,” “I don't have the environment to do that,” etc. But it is usually more likely that it's not really that you can't, it's that you don't.

Some people pretend they don't work much but it’s more likely that they work really hard. In fact, they do their best every moment of their life without even realizing it. Most people I see are working hard in their own way.

There are some people who feel sorry for themselves because they're working so hard and they don't have any time for themselves. They feel sorry for themselves because they think, “Why do I have to work so hard?” But I think they should be proud of themselves, not sorry for themselves. They should be proud and happy that they're able to work hard every day.

It's true that starting is important, so you can say, “Starting is half the battle,” but starting is not the end. Any achievement requires continuous effort, and in this case, if you take a product as an example, it doesn't sell by itself when you launch it. You have to constantly manage it and improve the quality, and you have to pay attention to sales, service, delivery, etc. because it's not just the product that should be good and there are so many other things to take care of. If you neglect these things, even the best product will disappear sooner or later.

There's so much you can do, and if you start anything, stick with it, and you'll see results, or you'll find yourself becoming an expert in your field. Starting is half the battle. But if you just start and don't put in the effort, you're literally only halfway there, and we all know that just starting doesn't mean you're done.

                                https://youtu.be/tRpjNw04tCA?si=sSO7ZWs8jATWLJQg

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[Mother Therapy] Are you happier when you're alone or together?

 

Are you happier when you're alone or together? There are times when we are alone and times when we are with someone. We naturally move back and forth between being alone and being together, and depending on our own experiences, we say “I like being alone” or “I like being together,” but how we feel is highly dependent on our current emotions and circumstances, so some people feel more comfortable and better when they're alone because they're currently struggling in a relationship, while others feel happier when they're with people because they're currently feeling lonely and empty.

The important thing is to recognize what you need now, not just one way or the other. If being alone feels comfortable and good to you right now, it may be the break you need at the moment, or if being with someone brings you joy, it may be a sign that your heart needs a relationship.

It's interesting to note that people feel happier when they bring joy to someone else than they do when they get pleasure for themselves. Perhaps we are naturally altruistic beings. For example, preparing delicious food for children and seeing them enjoy it brings you more joy than when you eat it. In this way, other people's happiness can become your happiness, too.

But if I'm struggling in a relationship, I need to take a moment to focus on myself. When I notice that I'm feeling a little more emotional than usual, or that I'm overthinking about things, I intentionally move my body to shift gears. Going for a walk, exercising, or just tidying up around the house really helps me. When we're in an emotionally unstable state, we can have a negative impact on the people around us, which in turn can make us feel worse, so it's important to look at how we're feeling and take care of ourselves first and foremost.

We all experience both happiness when we're alone and happiness when we're together. It's important not to stay in one or the other, and by creating healing habits of self-care and taking care of yourself well, whether you are alone or together, you can stay emotionally balanced.

We all know that the state of your body affects the state of your mind, so taking care of your health is also an essential part of self-care. To be happy both alone and together, find balance in your day by seeing yourself as you are right now and taking care of yourself physically and psychologically.

                                 https://youtu.be/3UbyAez76qE?si=chDTjewelGYNKfGp

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