Weeds or Flowers?

My DH and I went to this relationship seminar on Sunday hosted by our church and it was called building self esteem in your relationships. We erronously thought it would be about building self esteem in a marriage but it was actually geared more toward parenting. Ok that's cool we can roll with it the guy teaching us this stuff was Dr. John Splinter and he has a PHD in Marriage and family counseling so we think he knows his stuff...lol. Dr.John..and yes I love saying that..lol...made some very good suggestions but something he said that really struck a nerve for Phillip and I was that in life what you see is what you get ALL THE TIME! What he meant was that if you see weeds (crabby, irritable, irrascible,outlook)then that's what you'll get out of people all the time (Pessissmist). If your outlook is flowers (pretty, soft, kind, interesting)then that's what you get out of people all the time (Optimist). It doesn't mean you'll won't have a bad day but that you are less likely to have a bad day when you are an optimist. So his point was that we as parents tend to draw out of our children what we see in them. This was particularly helpful in the fact that my bonus daughter is a serious, hardcore, pessismist, everything she does or says is negative and i've often wondered why she can't see the good in something. Dr. John used his own daughter as an example of what he was talking about and he said: She was obstinate and stubborn and fiesty and competitive...you know all the things I as her father am. In short we're exactly alike personality wise and I was taking this class on positive reinforcement and I thought hmm well it's worth a shot. So at night for the bedtime routine instead of arguing with her and engaging in a power struggle with her I instead began to try putting this positive reinforcement into play. Rather than say "Gretchen it's time to take a bath" I'd say "Gretchen you are a really fast runner I bet you could beat me up the stairs!". So his point in a long and drawn out way of saying it is that our children will give us exactly what we expect of them. Does it mean you won't have to ever discipline your children again? No and he was very adamant that discipline is important but a funny thing happens when you use positive reinforcement..you find that your children WANT to please you and thus it makes discipline fewer and farther between. He mentioned that you could use this same principle to affect your other relationships. Such as with your spouse or at work or even at church.
Of course there was homework..lol..there is always homework at these things and we are doing this homework at our house as well. What you do is you take an index card and you draw a line straight down the middle, on one side you put a - and on the other side you put a +. Everyday you have to find five positive things to complement someone on in your house and for everyday that you succeed in this you give yourself a check mark in the + column. For everyday that you fall short of the five compliments you give yourself a check mark in the - column and IF you are honest with yourself at the end of the week you'll have a clear picture of whether or not you see weeds or flowers.
I really loved how he backed up everything he was saying with scripture as well. So if you are interested in the scripture he posted it was Phillipians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Fix these things in your mind and see these things in your children and you will begin to draw these things out of them.