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Positive language
The big picture
Negatives are a trick of language – if you suggest something using negatives, it implants in someone else’s mind the very image of the thing you don’t want them to do. Not only does positive language reinforce positive behaviours but it positively affects the well-being of the recipient, whereas the cumulative effect of negatives can create stress.
If you say to a small child ‘Don’t run in the road’, it’s quite likely that the child will do precisely that. The child cannot experience a negative, and the positive image you have placed in the child’s mind is of running in the road. One of the reasons that diets are unsuccessful is because the dieter, with great intentions to be good, declares: ‘Today I’m going ...
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