A document explaining how to help a child meet their targets by focussing on the positive. These are the opening words of this 3 page document with useful diagrams:
When you look at a child’s target sheet it is easy for the eye to be drawn to where they have failed and the negative comments that are sometimes there.
If you comment about these the child will focus their energy on where it went wrong and their “failure”. It is a bit like saying to someone balancing on the edge of a cliff “Don’t look down!” Their eyes and whole body are drawn to the very things you don’t want them to do!
If this negative focus continues, it can then build into feelings for the child such as “I got it wrong” “every time I try I fail” “I can’t do it”. This then gets translated into “I am a failure” “I am bad”.
The overall effect is a spiral where the child behaves how he/ she thinks they are perceived and the behaviours we are trying to change become worse not better. The child may even fail to show his/her target sheet to you or “lose” it.
Being “solution focussed” turns this on its head. It works on where the child got it right and builds on that. The approach relies on noticing, commenting on and magnifying where the child has “got it right” and subtly ignoring the failures. (This doesn’t negate the need for sanctions for breaches of accepted standards of behaviour).
When you look at a child’s target sheet it is easy for the eye to be drawn to where they have failed and the negative comments that are sometimes there.
If you comment about these the child will focus their energy on where it went wrong and their “failure”. It is a bit like saying to someone balancing on the edge of a cliff “Don’t look down!” Their eyes and whole body are drawn to the very things you don’t want them to do!
If this negative focus continues, it can then build into feelings for the child such as “I got it wrong” “every time I try I fail” “I can’t do it”. This then gets translated into “I am a failure” “I am bad”.
The overall effect is a spiral where the child behaves how he/ she thinks they are perceived and the behaviours we are trying to change become worse not better. The child may even fail to show his/her target sheet to you or “lose” it.
Being “solution focussed” turns this on its head. It works on where the child got it right and builds on that. The approach relies on noticing, commenting on and magnifying where the child has “got it right” and subtly ignoring the failures. (This doesn’t negate the need for sanctions for breaches of accepted standards of behaviour).
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