postcards for parents

Greetings!

A reader wrote in last week to tell me about an article she had seen 
in her local newspaper.  Apparently it was critical of the overuse 
of praise in parenting, and she wondered how that might fit in 
with my last postcard.  I appreciate the opportunity to dive a 
little deeper into this topic.

Before I get started, let me be very clear ... the side-effects 
of excessive praise are infinitesimal when compared to the damage 
done by physical punishment, shaming, guilting, criticizing, or 
ignoring.  If praise and positive reinforcement have recently 
taken the place of one of these other tactics in your parenting, 
that's excellent ... congratulate yourself and keep up the good work!

Others of us might be feeling a nagging discomfort when reading or 
hearing how important it is to praise our kids, and maybe we're not 
quite clear about why.  So I'll toss some of my thoughts and feelings 
about this onto the table, and as always I'll ask you to experiment 
for yourself with the ideas that resonate with you, and leave the 
rest.  Ultimately YOU are the only one who really knows what works 
for your family.

OK then, here we go.  

When I wrote about the peacock being proud of his tail feathers, 
I was in no way suggesting that he got that way because other 
peacocks told him he was the finest.  In my opinion, praise 
has nothing to do with our innate capability to value ourselves.

Kids come into this world already proud of who they are. In the 
last postcard I talked about some of the ways we socialize them 
into sending this pride underground.  It's my premise that the 
best way to 'build' self-esteem in children is to simply remove 
those constraints and get out of their way.  

Help them to discover and access their unique strengths and talents.  
Allow them to delight in their capabilities and experience the inner 
satisfaction that comes from mastery and competence.  Then their 
self-image will be built on a foundation of confidence which is 
anchored in reality, not on a flimsy scaffolding of artificial 
boosts to their ego.  

For the purpose of this discussion, I'm making a distinction 
between praise and sincere admiration.  I see praise as an 
attempt to manipulate another's behavior for your own ends.  
When you praise someone, you are doing it because you hope 
that they will repeat whatever behavior came before the praise.  

Which may be a good thing when you are training a dog 
(I don't have a dog so I can't say for sure), but I'm 
not sold on the idea of 'training' our kids with the 
verbal equivalent of scooby snacks.  I don't know about 
you, but I don't want to have to carry a pocket full of 
praise tidbits every time I leave the house.  I'd like my 
kids to carry their motivation inside them, not eat it 
out of my hand. 

As I said before, I believe most young children naturally 
feel satisfied with their accomplishments.  But praise may 
actually serve to diminish this self-esteem by interfering 
with the inner feedback loop.  

When little Johnny stacks his blocks for the first time, 
the process of creating the stack is his reward.  He feels 
an internal sense of mastery when he realizes that he has 
the power to change that messy pile into a neat tower. 

But when we jump in to praise him because we hope he'll do 
it again, we distract him from his inner sense of satisfaction.  
Instead we draw his attention to our evaluation of his skill.  
He may lose touch with his internal reward (the joy of mastery), 
and instead focus on earning more of our attention and approval. 

When we step in too quickly and too often with praise, the 
path to the child's inner source of validation may become 
overgrown with weeds and hard to find (use it or lose it).  

He or she may become dependent upon validation from 'out there'.  
And someday, sooner than you'd like to think, 'out there' is no 
longer your territory -- it's filled with peers. When that day 
comes for my kids, I'm hoping their internal paths to 
self-validation are very well worn and familiar!

But it's kind of an uphill battle.  Many of our social institutions 
make liberal use of the reward and punishment system of behavior 
management.  After my son started school, he went from reading 
for the fun of it to refusing to read anything unless he was 
going to receive reading points from his teacher for doing it.  

Now he'll put in his required 20 minutes a day of reading and then 
put the book away.  But I read for the fun of it, and so I keep 
setting that example.  I bring home exciting books and we read them 
together. I hope this will keep the fire alive in him.  Guess only 
time will tell.

Here's some other examples of what we see in kids who've lost touch 
with the joy of doing things for their own sake:

~~ They study to learn the material for the test, but immediately 
   forget it when the test is over.  Knowledge is gleaned for the 
   grade, not for the joy of learning new things and becoming 
   well-informed.

~~ They'll clean their rooms, but only for the allowance, not 
   because it's satisfying to play and sleep in an orderly space.  
   When recruited to help with other tasks around the house, 
   they immediately ask how much it pays.

~~ They may have a tough time persevering on a long and difficult 
   task because the material gratification is too delayed.

So let me address a few of the questions you may have:

~~ But if I'm not praising and not punishing, what do I do instead? ~~

Try simply communicating your sincere admiration, gratitude, 
and appreciation when it arises.

When your child does something admirable, let him know how you feel.  
"Wow!  Do I count 20 towers on that sand castle?!" instead of 
"Good building, Johnny!"  The difference is that when you admire 
or appreciate, you join him in his experience and there's an 
alignment.  When you praise, you derail his train and bring 
it over to your track.  

(And yeah, sometimes that is exactly what you want to do, 
and praise is certainly the least harmful kind of manipulation 
for those times.  Just try to make the 'reward' as logical and 
related to the task as possible.  "Gosh, the house looks so neat 
now that we've cleaned that I'm ready to have guests!  Do you 
guys want to invite a friend over?")

When you are grateful for your child's help, say so.  When she 
shares a little known fact that she learned at school, your 
interest and attention are the reward.  Becoming a valued and 
contributing member of the family and society is much more 
of a reinforcement than grades or a gold stars.

Try treating your child like you'd treat an adult neighbor or 
coworker.  I don't see my neighbors getting smiley stickers 
when they shovel their driveway or weed their garden, even 
if they do a really good job.  And no one says, "Good gardening, Joe!"  

Nonetheless, a well-maintained yard is a pleasure for the whole 
neighborhood, and I can let them know that I enjoy the fruits 
of their labors without praising them.  A quiet and sincere 
comment of acknowledgment and appreciation goes a long way.  

The difference lies in the intention.  Kids recognize from a 
mile away that praise is really a sugarcoated agenda.  Most 
of them prefer and respond positively to sincerity. Wouldn't you?

~~But if I stop giving rewards they won't be motivated to do anything! ~~

We each do dozens of things every day for no external reward.  
We sew or knit or paint or do woodworking just for fun.  
We strive to decrease our time or improve our score just for 
the thrill of growth and mastery.  We wash dishes so we can 
eat from clean plates later.  We stop at red lights even 
when there are no police cars in sight, because we want 
to arrive at our destination in one piece.  

Babies learn to walk because their developing bodies drive 
them to do so, not because we clap and cheer at their first 
steps!  It really is ok to leave them alone with their process.  
I'm not saying we can't share in their delight.  But they learn 
to walk even without any gold stars.

Doesn't this make you wonder how many other accomplishments might 
be motivated by a similar internal drive if given the chance?  
Wouldn't it be great to just relax and trust this intrinsic motivation? 

If this subject intrigues you, be sure to check out the book 
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.  It's a fascinating read!  
And as always, I welcome your comments, questions, and insights.

Take care,

karen