How to Become More Beautiful?

Elif, who came home with joy every day, had returned a little calmly from school that day. It was apparent that he was all confused. “How would he do this, how to be better?” His mind was always busy with these questions.

When Elif wanted to be more beautiful, she would comb her hair, wear fancy hairpins, and sometimes wear her mother’s jewelry, and smell nice. However, they wore neither clasp nor jewelry. When he realized that he could not get out of the business, he took his sister with his breath. “Sister, how to be better?” she said excitedly.

Her older sister: “The more dignified / dignified you are, for example, when walking outside, the better.”

When Elif received this answer from her older sister, she was thoroughly confused. How would this be possible? How would the twenty-nine letters he had memorized? He couldn’t do that. The question of how he grew up in his head. He couldn’t go to school without finding the answer. He could neither play games nor do homework from thinking. It was finally time for his father to return from work. When the bell rang, he ran to the door, thrown into his father’s compassionate arms. “Daddy, I want to ask you something.” said.

Her father said, “Of course, girl. Let’s ask.” she stroked her hair. Elif believes that this time she will find the answer to the question: “How to be more beautiful?” asked. Her father put a kiss on her cheek and said, “Of course, I’m beautiful girl like you.” said.

This was not the answer Elif was waiting for. He dropped his shoulders. She would share the situation with her mother. He took his notebook from his bag, asking to ask, went to his mother. He repeated that question with a blown cotton in his mind. “Mom, how to be better?” Her mother followed Elif’s pain of finding answers all day long, using her mother’s ability to observe a special son, and thought that she was hanging on this subject during her dialogue with her friend at school.

“Everyone can be beautiful when he feels happiest, my dear girl.”

Elif, pointing to the notebook: “Then my teacher thinks I am unhappy, why did he write this under my article?”

When her mother read the note written by the teacher, the question that Elif was looking for was understood. The statement written in the note was: “It could have been more beautiful.”

So what was really beautiful and how to be?

Process notification, not result
Feedback for preschool and primary school children is of great importance for their development. As parents and educators, we need to provide effective feedback. However, we should be aware that this feedback creates deep meanings and complexities in their world.

First of all, it should be known that praising the right behavior in children and giving feedback about that behavior are different things. In order for a child to feel competent, he must realize that he has the ability to do that job. The child’s self-confidence improves, aware of what he can do.

When the child shows a positive attitude, giving feedback about it is evidence that we see and be aware of the behavior. For example; When the child finished his homework, he said, “It is great to see that you have completed your homework.” When I gathered his room, “Thank you for collecting your room, it makes me very happy to fulfill your responsibilities.” it means giving feedback to the child, it is very precious and if it is paid attention, this situation has been conveyed with “I Language”.

The use of feedback, “You’re great, bravo!” It is more functional than the words of praise. Well, will we never praise our child? It is more effective to praise the child’s efforts to achieve something rather than the outcome of the work he does. In other words, it is more useful to praise the works he did for the grade, not the grade he received… Acting with a process-oriented follow-up system, not result-oriented. Because when unexpected events occur far beyond the child, family, school, teachers, the result may not be as desired. But the labor given in the process both relieves conscientiously and is never wasted; another day will surely find its equivalent from another place.

Feedback to change behavior
We need to collect data first so that we can give effective feedback to children. We can collect the data by observation. In other words, we should analyze the underlying causes of our children’s behavior well, and we should only listen without commenting while listening to them.

The behavior that needs to be changed should be well defined in the feedback. The above statement was directed at Elif’s article, but it was not clear. The concept of “more beautiful” remained abstract for the child and was perceived as a negative message. Instead, in terms of explanatory and concrete; “There’s a letter P here. Shall we lower this line straight down from the top and try to make a belly from the top of the bar? ” like…

Feedback to children should be done more individually in calm environments with mutual trust. It should also be right after our interlocutor’s behavior so that the child can establish a strong link between behavior and feedback.

Usually, we tend to see the empty side of the glass. Maybe that’s why we, as educators and parents, often focus on areas that need improvement. However, we can gain the behaviors that we want to see more easily by considering the positive ones. We can achieve this by expressing the child’s good skills first and then adding our expectations. As a result of the feedback focusing on the good, we see that they act faster.

Let our children see the beauty themselves. Knowing what he accomplished is the compass of knowing that he will succeed. Let us only help them become aware of their skills and discover their beauty with our effective feedback.