Want to Correct Somebody? Then Try the Hailing/Praising Strategy
The usual innate response when a child misbehaves is to scold them. We do this in the form of hushing, shouting, screaming, frowning, you get it now. Likewise, our initial response to when our friends or colleagues step on our toes is to unleash the venom in us in the form of confrontations — ranging from criticizing, castigation, apportioning blames, etc — all while using some harsh truths and maybe strong words as weapons to drive home across the message — in correcting them.
What if I told you there was another effective method of getting what you want in a person? That is, without all the blood-boiling hassles and guilt of falling off the self-improvement wagon?
How you correct a child specifically speaks volumes on their personal development later in the future.
What if you implored the praising or hailing strategy of correcting someone instead?
This means using the good aspects of someone, with kindness and empathy, to navigating them to the good sides or behavior you expect from them.
Imploring they praising or hailing strategy comes from a place of appreciation. From appreciating someone for how they are and have lived or handled their life thus far, before delving into what they aren’t doing right.
This strategy is an effective one in the sense that you’re acknowledging both sides of a person’s being. You’re telling them you know they are fallible but equally possess good traits. You’re emphasizing their wholeness in being and not being (whatever fits), acting and inaction (whatever good/bad comes from each), behaving well and misbehavior — which are fundamental parts of who we are.
It’s tempting to categorize this strategy as a psychological trick or manipulative. And maybe it is. But the point is that you’re imploring a healthier and safer method of getting someone to rid of bad behavior rather than use the outdated method of scolding or confrontations that might not be all that effective anyway, anymore.
This is similar to positive reinforcement. A psychological term that is used to define a technique to getting someone to drop a bad habit or continue a good one. Especially for kids. But equally as effective for adults.
Because the way you correct a child significantly affects the way they turn out in their adulthood.
A typical example stems from my life thus far.
Before now, I always believed scolding and confrontations (especially as harsh as they came) were the best ways to rid me of my misdemeanors. Therefore, whenever I did something wrong, I’d scowl in fear and await all the abuse of words to come to course-correct me from either my parents, school teachers, or other authoritarians.
Little did I know they were only worsening the situation, making me rebellious and act out of resentment towards them.
This affected my image as a person. As a first-born, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a girl-friend, concomitantly.
Because later on, self-awareness helped me realize that while this strategy may have seemed to work for others around me, say my siblings or friends, it was not the best way to correct me (for next time).
Instead, it exacerbated the current misdemeanor and mischievousness. Not that I feel sorry for the people involved in the correction scheme.
Now, I’m aware of the fact that to get me to listen or correct me, no matter how wrong I am, you must exercise the hailing/praising strategy.
This common misconception and brutality of enforcing correction on kids or adults using harsh techniques to make it stick is the highest form of abuse and then, a grave sin to personalities like mine who are repulsive to such strategy.
And just like every action comes with its pros and cons, lies the cons of using unnatural means of correcting a child or an adult below.
Simply put: parents or primary caregivers, ought to learn to observe the kind of person their children are. And for adults: they should make it a point of duty to let the people in their lives know the best way to approach them when correcting them in case they haven’t noticed. Their spouse, friends, colleagues, whoever it may be.
Because doing so allows you to determine what approach to use. It helps you evaluate the preferred option of correction strategy to implore. Instead of mixing up the whole thing all in the name of a mythological approach of handling similar situations from the past.
It also disallows your children from resenting you when they grow up and realize you couldn’t remotely learn who they were and attend to their needs thus. But gives them great comfort when they feel safe around you even when they misbehave while considering and appreciating the fact that you studied their personality and act accordingly.
Another con is that this could also lead to rebellious acts — as a way to punish the so-called authoritarians by acting contrary to their staunch belief and likewise their method of course-correcting.
The substantial benefit from imploring the hailing or praising strategy of correcting someone is that it helps to confirm or validate the type of relationship you have with them. This works by letting the other person know that you’re aware of their personality. As regards whether they are sensitive, emotional, soft, whatever adjective fits, even strong, and wouldn’t stand a certain way of being corrected. It also points out the strong belief, which is that people with those sorts of personalities are often too hard on themselves already anyway. They self-criticize, self-loathe, and self-deprecate with their words or action easily when they feel they’ve fallen off the good tree.
Therefore, scolding or confronting them with a very harsh approach, a method that’d usually be okay for an average person, is most definitely adding salt upon injury. And rather than achieve the results you expected, you would have not only lost from not accomplishing the results but breaking a spirit or a soul alongside.
As formerly mentioned, the hailing or praising strategy works in the form of positive reinforcement. This means that it can cause the corrected person to double down on their good sides while looking forward to correcting their not-so-good sides as well.
For example:
When you begin the correction process by confirming a person to be an honest person and trustworthy, it helps them truly open up to you about the realities of the events you seek the truth about. It helps to make them feel relaxed enough to tell the tale or listen thus. Because they believe you’re not judging them or seeing things from only one angle concerning what you need to correct them for — as opposed to if you came out critical about their one-time dishonesty and or generalized it.
Ultimately, there’s no-win here.
These explain why the hailing or praising strategy is a better technique.
It helps to release the good hormones in the body. Serotonin I believe. Which the malfunctioning aspect of it gives rise to depression. The opposite side effect of what you want to accomplish anyway.
In general speaking terms, it’s better to be kind when trying to correcting someone. It’s not an easy phenomenon to be corrected — as much as it’s not to correct someone.
But when someone acknowledges their fault, it’s a brave act and needs strength in so doing. They don’t need an extra scolding or confrontation to add to the weight of responsibilities they are carrying. But instead a more effective wholesome strategy like the hail or praising type, which would make them feel like humans who are fallible but at the same time, one who is doing their best or at the least, worthy of the chance to do their best.
It’s a win-win this way.
The corrector penetrates the heart of the corrected while preserving their dignity and mood for later on. The corrected here forthwith understands what is being communicated and continues to improve and develop thus.
Because at least we all know we’ll falter again another way after being corrected one too many times before then.
It’s human. It’s natural. Be kind.
