Years ago when my niece was about 10 years old. She was crying softly, walking to me and says..
She said “Uncle Paiboon, my friend called me FAT, they said ‘You are fat’“
My niece is chinese girl who had cute chubby look, to me she’s very pretty and cute.
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PS: 29 Dec, I went through my 2005 pictures gallery and found my niece’s picture. So, I’ve update this post to put her picture in here.
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As you know every behavior has positive intention, so I replied.
I replied: “Well… sometimes, when people call you the way you don’t want, it might feel uneasy”
In my family, we don’t lable a child or name calling him/her. And I believe that I can’t change bad children but I can change bad behaviors.
She said: “I don’t like the way they say that, and I’m reducing my weight now. But I know they didn’t really mean that, they just want to have fun with me”
Paiboon: “If they were to mean something good for you. What is it stand for, what’s FAT stand for, What’s ‘F’ stand for?”
She think for a while “Fabulous”; she shouted
Paiboon: “How about an ‘A’ and ‘T’ ?”
She said “Awesome and Tantalizing” (Sometime, I got surprised by 10 years old girl vocabulary)
Paiboon: “Great!!!”
She said “Yes, I am Fabulous, Awesome and Tantalizing. I am F.A.T. I am F.A.T”
Here is some of my friends’ name… acronym:
Bob = Best Of the Best
Baba = Big Ambitious Bold Achiever
Teck Yin: Talented Energized Cool Kick-ass Young Inside Never-giveup
Sarah: Sincere Angle and Reflesh Again and Again Heroine
Salleh: Splendid Ageless Lucky Leader Empowered Honesty
What do you stand for? Make it COOL 
December 29th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
WOW!
Interesting, Paiboon!
I recall reading about this technique of ‘Creating Fantasy’ to deal with children’s negative emotions in the book “How to talk so that your child will listen & How to listen so that your child will talk”
Powerful stuff put to good use!
Cheers!
January 1st, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I’ve read the book — How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk — by Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish. They’ve mentioned about positive believe parent should have in the chapter “Free Children from Labeling”. The Acronym technique actually come from me observing Robert Allen using so many Acronym in his book.
Cheers,
PS: You blog is cool!
June 26th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Cool!
Paiboon: Pretty Awesome Intelligent Buddy Omnipresent Oestensibly Neo
Hee hee hee…
A!
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Or how about, Paiboon: Posessing an infinite bundle of optimized neurons.
Nice post! thanks Paiboon!!