Caught Being Good

I think I first heard this phrase from my wife referring to a tactic used in her 1^st grade (maybe kindergarten at the time) classroom to reinforce good behavior.  She would hand a “Caught Being Good” card out to a student who, very simply, was doing things the right way.  Rather than focusing on what may be wrong in the classroom, she chose to focus on all the right things that were going on in the classroom…and the more those right things were identified, the more those wrong things stopped happening.  Obviously, if one student destroyed another student’s crayons for the fun of it then a different tactic may need to have been deployed…but overall, her “Caught Being Good” model worked well re-enforcing her kids to do the right thing.

Guess what?  Big kids (ahem…Adults) respond kindly to this concept as well.  My collection agency blogs from now until the end of the year will focus on the concept of “Caught Being Good”.  It may be a client, an employee, a relative, a waiter, etc…it could really be anyone.  It’s only fitting that my wife is the first person I caught being good.  It’s hard to catch her doing something that isn’t good and she doesn’t get enough credit for it either.  It would be impossible to list them all, but If it weren’t for her intelligence, tireless work ethic (at work and home) and her love I would be lost.

See how easy that was?!?!  So keep your head up, if you’re doing things the right way you just may be “caught being good”.