Every kid that has ever walked the face of the earth has at some point in their life slammed something down and shouted "I can't do it!". Goodness knows, I know plenty of adults who do exactly the same.
I can't do it!
It's very final, isn't it? There is an a whole load of quitting going on. Dummies are being thrown out of prams and toys are being kicked (both metaphorically and literally!).
The initial reaction to a statement like "I can't do it" is to say something that very much sounds like "there's no such thing as can't".
Now I'm a positive person but even I know that there definitely is such a thing as can't. For instance, I can't go on a date with Drew Barrymore (if you're reading this, Drew, call me!) and I can't lift a 10 tonne truck with one hand.
So how do you deal with a negative comment like I can't do that? How do you make it positive? "Sure you can, buddy!" will only get you so far. My opinion of my inability to date Drew Barrymore isn't going to change because someone said that I can, is it? But surely we can't just let our kids wallow in negativity? We can't say "no, you're right, dude, you're never going to succeed" because that's even more harmful than false positivity.
And this is where we get to the point of this blog. We, as parents, have a super power. That super power is that our kids will believe most of what we tell them (especially younger kids). If we use that super power with false positivity we erode the trust the kids have in us. It only took a couple of times of people saying that I could date Drew Barrymore before I realised that they were being less than truthful. "Sure you can!" starts to be met with an eye roll rather than an uplifting attitude. We can solve this little conundrum with just one word.
Yet.
In using the word "yet" we acknowledge the very real anger and frustration that a child may have as they fail at something. "I can see that you are struggling with this" is what we are saying to them; but we continue "it may not always be this way".
Wow, all that meaning in one word. It really is powerful, isn't it? With that one word we turn a phrase of anger and failure around, not into a false positive but into a very real hope.
"I will get better"
"One day I may be able to"
"I can't do it... Yet!"
I don't have a date with Drew Barrymore... yet! (Okay, very real hope may be stretching it on some things!)
