Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

system with the thumbs-up. Double thumbs-up is “awesome.” One thumbs-up is “great.” A thumb parallel to the ground is “fine.” And a thumbs-down is “bad.”
ROUTINES AND RITUALS FOR COMPETENCE
     
    Anything that takes effort to accomplish is an opportunity for your children to get the message of competence. And as I noted in chapter 2, the more repetition to which you can expose your children, the more likely that the specific competency and the general sense of competence will be instilled. Without realizing it, you likely already have many daily routines that enhance your children’s sense of competence. When you think deliberately about these opportunities, you’re able to identify even more such opportunities and can really maximize the benefits of those to which your children are exposed.
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    ROUTINES AND RITUALS FOR COMPETENCE
     
Household chores.
Setting and clearing the dinner table.
Bedtime responsibilities.
Getting ready for school.
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    You can build these “windows” of competence into your daily routines and combine them with other messages such as responsibility. For example, the chores that you assign your children, such as folding and putting their clothes away or piling their books on the table in the family room, are also great openings for them to gain that sense of competence.
    Dinnertime is one of those windows. Since they were less than two years old, Catie and Gracie have set the table before dinner and have been required to bring their dishes, cups, and silverware to the sink after dinner. For some time as they mastered these skills, after-dinner cleanup was a pretty precarious and messy time, as the girlsfrequently dropped their (wood) plates and spilled food and milk. But before too long, they not only learned to clear the table with ease and skill, but they now like to serve dinner as well. They are also required to fold their napkins after dinner, no small feat of fine motor coordination for young children.
    Darlene and Peter use their twin son and daughter’s bedtime to instill competence. They have given them progressively more responsibility to clean up their rooms, get undressed and into their pajamas, brush and floss their teeth, and pick out their books. It has gotten to the point where their children don’t want them to intrude on their bedtime preparations (even though they aren’t quite ready to go it alone). Darlene and Peter combine these experiences with appropriate praise (“You brushed your teeth all by yourself!”) to reinforce the children’s belief in their own competence.
    Edie sees competency windows in her boys’ morning routines. From just after their fourth birthdays, Tommy and Greg were required to make their beds and get themselves dressed for preschool. Of course, Edie had to “ride herd” over them at first, coaxing and coaching them in how to pull the top sheet and blanket up on their beds, take their clothes out of their drawers, and put them on (as adults, we forget how incredibly difficult it once was to zip up pants and button shirts). But by age five, both boys were old hands at getting ready while their mother prepared breakfast and packed their school lunches. Edie readily admits that her efforts were partly selfish. Because her husband leaves for work well before the boys wake up, this early “training” has lightened her load in the morning and made life a whole lot easier for her.
ACTIVITIES FOR COMPETENCE
     
    Your days are rife with activities, both mundane and fun, in which your children can gain that sense of competence. You just need torecognize them for what they are and look for ways to include your children in them.
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    ACTIVITIES FOR COMPETENCE
     
Gardening.
Grocery shopping.
Meal preparation.
Home fix-it projects.
Games, puzzles, sports, pretend play, art.
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    Sarah has a garden in our backyard in which she grows all kinds of vegetables. It is a source of great pride to serve our family produce right from her own garden. And our girls love being “farmers,” too. Sarah assigned Catie and Gracie a corner of the garden that is their own and even bought them children’s gardening kits complete with a pink bucket, gloves, and gardening tools. Sarah helped our girls decide what vegetables to plant and then showed them how to prepare the soil, plant the vegetables, and harvest the fresh produce. When Catie and Gracie share the fruits (I mean vegetables) of their labor with me, they are two happy (and