Mom Tip Monday: Factual Commenting

This year is the third year I’ve participated in a local co-op preschool focused heavily on positive discipline. We learn about tricks and techniques during class through the gentle guidance of the kids’ teacher and the parent instructor (there is one of each in every class), as well as several evening seminars offered to those of us in the preschool program (at no additional charge).

Right out of the gate they recommend new parents to the program take the evening seminar called “Parents as Teachers.” This class gives us valuable information about child development as well as a look at why they do what they do in preschool. We go home with all kinds of information on how to guide and discipline our kids in nurturing ways.

For me, two big things stood out from this class. The first was the strong emphasis on encouraging the children to solve their own problems (rather than stepping in) and the other was factual commenting.

Factual commenting didn’t come natural to me. It took work, but after practice I got the hang of it and the change I saw in Sweetness after a few months was really exciting to watch.

Factual commenting is basically providing constant commentary on what your baby, toddler or preschooler is doing. Your child is listening and after enough repetition from you, he will pick up the vocabulary. What’s more, when you’re factually commenting on what your child is doing, you’re focused on her. This deepens your connection with her, helps fill her love cup with positive attention, and just plain pleases her to no end that you’re paying attention and noticing.

Here’s an example:

Your little boy is playing with two toy cars, a red one and a blue one. You’re simply sitting on the floor with him and commenting on what he’s doing, “You’re driving the red car over the pillow. Look at how fast it can go. Oh the red car and blue car crashed into each other. They’re having a race. Where did the blue car go? You saw it go under the chair. You’re being so careful that you don’t bump your head when you get the car.”

Some parents and teachers keep this going ad nauseum, and to be honest, there is only so much I can do. I’m certainly not going nonstop. However, I’ll pick and choose certain things to say and even ask questions. I’ll do this a lot when the kids are first learning language and I’ve seen Sweetness learn vocabulary, like her colors and counting just by me counting the blocks she’s putting into the bin as she does it, or commenting on the colors of things she’s playing with.

However, the real impact of the commenting I did with Sweetness the first two years of her life suddenly came to light as I started doing it with Mr. Man. As soon as she saw me commenting on him playing she jumped right in. Now I’ll hear her in his room with him, “That’s an orange car baby brother. You’re driving on the rug.”

When Little Dude finally decides to start talking, he’ll be off to the races for sure.

Tagged as: connection parenting, Positive Discipline