At Fiore, our goal is to build the child’s intrinsic motivation. In order to achieve this, we work to reduce the amount of adult opinion and approval placed on the child’s work.
One way that we can flip the focus from adult approval to the child’s own sense of accomplishment and worth, is by replacing phrases such as, “good job” with ones that put the focus on the child.
Try using phrases or questions such as…
“You are working hard!”
“You finished!”
“How does that make you feel?”
“What do you think?”
“Tell me more about what you’re working on/what you have completed.”
“I see that you used red and blue.” (describe what they did)
“Where would you like to put that?”
“What would you like to do next?”
Share your other ideas below!