My sister-in-law recently sent out a group email with a link to article entitled 4 Things Every Kids Needs to Hear from their Father. I agree with the general gist of the article, I was annoyed by something the author, Mike Berry, wrote about pride. He thinks that kids needs to hear the words, “I’m proud of you!”.
While I agree that kids need to hair words of praise from their parent, I take issue with the authors use of the word proud to convey his sentiment.
Pride is:
- a feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by other people
- a feeling that you are more important or better than other people (this is the negative side)
- a feeling of happiness that you get when you do something good, difficult, etc.
Notice is does not say the feeling you get when someone else does something good or difficult. I think the phrase the author was looking for is “I take joy in your accomplishments/actions”. He even said himself with “There’s nothing more powerful that an attaboy or an attagirl.” Can proud really be used to describe the feeling one gets from someone else accomplishment
Instead of “I’m proud of you”, how about, “What you have accomplished is amazing.” or "I take great joy in your accomplishment."
I think “I believe in you” and “I’m in your corner!” are the same thing. If you aren't in someone's corner, then you aren't showing your belief in what they are up to.
Yes, kids may need to hear these things from us but even more so, they need to feel our love in our daily actions.
