{"id":1554,"date":"2010-05-22T03:32:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T13:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2010-05-22T03:32:08","modified_gmt":"2010-05-22T13:32:08","slug":"on-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/?p=1554","title":{"rendered":"On Praise"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have often been confused about praise. My parenting style can best be described as lovingly applied Behavior Modification<\/a> – which relies heavily on positive and a bit on negative reinforcement. I have heard child psychologists views on it, but to me it seems the parenting style of choice because I can see it is working (and maybe because at the bottom of my heart I am still an engineer).<\/p>\n

So my most used positive reinforcements are stickers on her reward chart, “privileges” (watch a movie, extra playdates, sweets…) and by far the number one – praise. I have very alternative friends, who did away with praising almost entirely and explained the reasons to me in a way I could not understand.<\/p>\n

greatschools.org<\/a> has an article about praise that shows how and why praising for the effort rather than the accomplishment will make a difference.<\/p>\n

If your child shows you a drawing, and you respond with \u201cYou\u2019re so talented! That picture is so pretty!\u201d (“Praising the accomplishment”) The result? Your child could become afraid of trying hard in the future (\u201cMy next drawing might not be so good\u201d), feel misunderstood (\u201cIt\u2019s not pretty! I drew an ugly witch!\u201d), and \u2014 kids being masters at spotting a con, even a well-meaning one \u2014 doubt your sincerity (\u201cCome on, it\u2019s not that pretty\u201d).<\/p>\n

Some examples:<\/p>\n

The situation:<\/strong> Without you asking, your kid got her socks and shoes on and comes right down to breakfast.
\nPraising the accomplishment:<\/strong> \u201cYou got your socks and shoes on! What a good girl.\u201d<\/span>
\nPraising the effort: <\/strong>\u201cYou found socks to match and got your shoes on without any help. That was a lot to do on your own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation: <\/strong> Your child has built an elaborate block city.
\nPraising the accomplishment: <\/strong>\u201cWow! That\u2019s the most amazing block structure I\u2019ve ever seen! You\u2019re going to be a world-famous architect.\u201d<\/span>
\nPraising the effort:<\/strong> \u201cLook at how many blocks are in your city! I can tell you worked really hard on it, but it must have been a lot of fun to build.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have often been confused about praise. My parenting style can best be described as lovingly applied Behavior Modification – which relies heavily on positive and a bit on negative reinforcement. I have heard child psychologists views on it, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplify-your-life.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}