#29: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct

Have I told you that Dale Carnegie's principles have stood the test of time?  He first started teaching his classes in New York City a century ago in 1912.  Still, the "wordsmith" in me feels the need to "tweak" the wording of one of his principles every now and then based on my experiment.  Here's the edited version for this week: "#29: Use encouragement."  PERIOD.  It's as simple as that.

As the mother of a two-year old, I find that encouragement (both giving and receiving!) is needed all the time whether mistakes are involved or not.  My son is an extremely independent little boy and wants to do everything on his own.  This personality trait was heightened this week since Tyler was under the weather.  He still wanted to do everything on his own but he had less patience and energy than normal to do so.  This meant that mama had to dial up the encouragement!  For example, Tyler became extremely frustrated when trying to plug the vacuum into a childproof outlet.  I explained to him that this outlet wasn't like other outlets, offered to help him, and watched his little body become energized just as the vacuum roared to life.

Luckily, I think encouragement may be contagious.  Being the hormonal pregnant woman that I am, I was on the receiving end of some encouragement from Tyler this week also.  At one point, I was sitting on the couch and having a good cry over nothing.  Tyler crawled up on the couch, gave me a big hug, and patted my back.  Of course, he also said, "All done, Mommy" so I may have a few more encouragement lessons to teach...

Young or old, tired or energized - we all need encouragement.  Let's remember this fact as we go on our ways this week.