Simple yet Effective

As a parent now, I have found that I am constantly learning, growing and striving to be a better parent.  Before kids, I thought that I would be an awesome mom, I mean, I figured I was a good babysitter so of course I would be a good mom, right?  Yeah, not exactly just like babysitting!!!  Anyways, yesterday we were in For Eyes, or maybe it's spelled Four Eyes, I don't know, but we were there.  Of course, Kiley was being Kiley and trying on all the glasses.  Now, normally I would have been concerned that she was going to break them and I didn't want them being all judgey, but the reason that we were there in the first place was that they had broken Kevin's glasses when he had left them there to get new lenses in, so I figured they couldn't complain too much about a broken pair of demo glasses.  However, she didn't break them and she was actually quite gentle.  Oh again, on to the point of the story.  So this dad and his son come into the store to pick something up--the boy was probably about 8 or 9.  He was looking around for a second while his dad was waiting to get whatever he was picking up.  While the boy was looking around, he found a loose pair of lenses on the ground.  He immediately walked up the employee and said "Excuse me miss, I found these lenses on the ground and I wanted to make sure no one stepped on them."  The employee of course said thank you, but what really struck me was how the dad handled the situation.  I looked over to the dad and he didn't say a word to the son, but as the son walked toward him, he stuck out his hand to give him a handshake.  I loved how he didn't have to say anything, but that simple move saying "nice job son" was so effective in giving his son the recognition on a such remarkable behavior for a kid his age.   I love praising good behavior and I know that it is far more effective than constantly reprimanding for bad behavior, but sometimes you get stuck in the rut of constantly just saying "good job."  I need to remember that moment and parenting technique for the future. Simple yet effective and you know the son just loved getting that attention from his dad.