Thursday, April 02, 2009

Giving Complements at Work

A little incident happened today at work. I was working hard building a series of interactive statistics charts. I showed it to the person who requested that I do this and the first comment I got was, you labeled the chart wrong. OK, I was a little miffed but I’ll get over it because I’m an adult.

As a parent, I realize that if my kid does something for me that their proud of, it’s always good to start with an affirmation.

For example, if my kid gives me a drawing of me that they drew with crayons, and says, “Daddy, I drew a picture of you.” I will start with a complete.

“Honey, that’s wonderful, I’m so proud of you.”

Then if necessary, I can bring in an encouraging note of correction.

“This looks just like me, except my hair is black and not blue. I mean, cmon your hair is the same color. How could you miss the black crayon for crying out loud?!? And Turquoise Blue??? Couldn’t you have at least picked a darker color like Midnight Blue or Blizzard Blue????”

“Do you need glasses? Is that what you’re telling me? Don’t tell me your color blind? I did not raise you to be color blind.”

“What do we have here? Looks like Daddy is getting an extra Ice Cream Sandwich.”

“That’s not a tear, is it? Is it? Ok. Daddy’s very proud of you. Now get me the remote.”

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