Want to prevent challenging behavior and promote social, emotional, and relational skills? Try replacing praise with positive, descriptive, acknowledgment.
What’s that? I’m glad you asked!
Positive, descriptive, acknowledgment explains itself: you acknowledge and describe a child’s positive behavior! The caveat? Leave out any of the praise “labels” such as good job, I like that, you are so smart, you are being good. Nope. None of those. But why?
In this article, Craig Zercher and I outline the practice of positive, descriptive acknowledgment (PDA) and PDA Plus as replacement strategies for praise. In addition, PDA/PDA Plus help prevent challenging behavior.
With this shift from praise to PDA/PDA Plus, you may connect to your child (interpersonal attunement) as well as help the child build a connection to self (intrapersonal attunement). With this, challenging behavior decreases.
PDA and PDA Plus support the development of both the heart and the mind by allowing the child to experience feeling seen. When adults describe children’s positive actions aloud, without labels, they engage the circuitry of the child’s brain and mind that promotes self-understanding.
And when children learn to understand their positive qualities, they develop the confidence to activate these skills. In turn, they learn the value of adaptive behaviors.
Praise does not do these things. Click here to learn why in this in-depth article. And download this “tip sheet” for a focused glance at ways to offer PDA and PDA Plus to children (or adults!)
Contact me for training on how to develop the skill of positive, descriptive, acknowledgment. And, visit me on Instagram, Facebook, or You Tube for more articles, videos, podcasts, and conversations about PDA!