"You're so clever!"
"You're a good artist!"
"You're smarter than other children your age!"
It may sound like you're boosting the child's self esteem and the child is beaming from ear to ear. But you might just be doing more harm than good.
When we were growing up, praises were few and far between. A 95/100 score might elicit questions like, "What happened to the 5 marks?" Perhaps to compensate for that lack, coupled with the modern parenting "self-esteem" buzz, we heap praise lavishly for the smallest achievement.
Our little boy frequently gets comments from complete strangers, about his big eyes or how handsome he is. We didn't think much of it, until he started to ask a few months ago, "Am I handsome?" Alarm bells rang, and we informed him that he was asking the wrong question, and that the right question was, "Am I kind?" Thankfully, he has started to focus on being kind and now looks out for ways to do that.
Here are seven tips on how to praise a child constructively:
#1 : Catch them doing the right thing
Praise your children for things you want them to focus on. If you want them to focus on their looks, comment frequently on how handsome or pretty they are.
If you want your child to be gentle, catch him being gentle (to a person, animal or even an object) and praise him for it.
If a child is not used to sharing her toys, praise and thank her for the tiny bit that she grudgingly shares. When she feels good about sharing, she'll do it again.
"I saw you helping the little boy. That was very kind of you."
"Thank you for picking up the litter on the ground. It's nice that you're caring for Mother Earth."
#2 : Give Descriptive Praise. Don't exaggerate.
Describe what they did and state the positive quality they displayed.
You're so amazing!
You're such a good boy!
You held the door open for everyone. That's very CONSIDERATE of you.
You were very KIND just now. You wanted to watch TV but you turned it off because your sister was scared.
When a child presents you with a drawing, there's no need to gush about how wonderful it is. Be sincere and describe what you see.
Wow! What a beautiful picture! You're an artist!
Wow, you drew a house, with windows and doors, and you even drew doorknobs and curtains. That's really detailed.
It's a really colourful picture. I like the different colours you used for the flowers.
You were really careful and you coloured everything inside the lines!
If you REALLY can't make out what it is, describe, describe, describe.
That's a beautiful drawing! ...What is it?
I see a big blue circle, a long red line here, and lots of black dots. Tell me about your picture.
Here's an excerpt from "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk" b
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#3 : Praise a child for effort, not intelligence.
Wow! You are so clever!
Research shows that children praised for being clever avoid challenges in order to preserve their "clever" reputation. They were more interested in comparing marks than in learning. Furthermore, if these children failed at the next task, they would give up more easily, and attribute their failure to evidence of stupidity.
You did well at that. You must have put in a lot of effort!
On the other hand, children praised for putting in effort were more motivated to attempt challenging tasks that they would learn from. They were also more interested in learning new strategies than in comparing marks.
Source: Parenting Science
"Children whose parents had congratulated them for their effort were more open to taking on challenges, better at problem solving and more likely to believe they could improve themselves by working hard."
Source: The Telegraph
#4 : Praise the child for things they have control over
Wow, you're so clever! You succeeded at the first try!
You're the prettiest girl in the world!
If you praise children for PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES like being clever, they may build their self-worth on their cleverness. If the day comes that they do something that is NOT clever, (and they will!) or, when they meet a whole bunch of people who are cleverer than they are, their self-worth will plummet - there is nothing they can do about their IQ.
The same goes for constantly telling a child how handsome or pretty they are. I'm all for loving your face and body, but if a child's self-worth is built on her being pretty, she's going to have a lot of self-esteem problems when she encounters prettier girls.
But if you praise a child for GOOD QUALITIES, like working hard, for really putting effort into their work, for being observant, attentive, and having self discipline, they will always have the security of knowing that the power to build themselves up is in their own hands.
You're very observant! You looked carefully and saw that....."
You listened carefully and thought about what it meant."
You really put a lot of effort into building that. I saw you working on it all by yourself for an hour!"
You were really determined! You didn't give up even though it was so hard."
#5 : Praise the action, not the person
You are a great singer!
You sang that song really sweetly and with lots of feeling!
Labelling a child, even if it's a positive label, like being a good drawer, good singer, etc, could cause a child to feel that there is a reputation to uphold.
In one experiment, generic praise (“You are a good drawer”) caused children to be more upset about subsequent mistakes, and be reluctant to draw.
In contrast, specific praise (“You did a good job drawing”) caused children to show an interest in drawing.
Source: Parenting Science
#6 : Avoid Social Comparisons
Compare the child's work with her previous work, and not to others.
You did that faster than other children your age! You're better than the other 5-year-olds!
You're getting faster at this! Yesterday, you took 3 minutes, and today, you finished it in 2 minutes! You've improved!
"Praise involving social comparison was in fact worse than no praise at all. It seemed to sap their motivation, encouraging them to choose easy tasks in the future, maybe for fear that they would lose that top spot.
But this only applied if they were uncertain about how well they’d done. When they’d already been given their scores the girls and boys and behaved differently. The boys benefitted from the social comparisons, yet the girls didn’t. They seemed to react badly to being told they were doing better than others. They seemed to take from it that what matters is beating other people, rather than getting any satisfaction from the task itself, and so their motivation was reduced."
Source: BBC
#7 : Be Sincere. Don't Exaggerate.
A child can sniff out insincerity a mile away.
Child: Mummy, look at this picture!
Mummy: Wow! It's beautiful! It's wonderful! What is it?
Child: (hurt) Don't you know? It's you!
Sound familiar? Applying the technique of Descriptive Praise...
Child: Mummy, look at this picture!
Mummy: Wow! You used so many beautiful colours! I can see some black lines, and a bit of yellow over here. Tell me about your picture.
Child: (pointing) This is your hair, and this is your dress!
* * * * *
So the next time you want to praise your child, think about the message you are sending across and word your praise carefully!
By the way, all these techniques work on spouses too! :)
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