Parenting: Positive Praise vs Empty Praise

Praising our kids is an essential part of building their self esteem - so it is worth thinking about in a little more depth.
Children are a lot smarter and more perceptive than we realize, so one important part of praise is that it must be HONEST. If you praise your child for a piece of homework that you don't really feel is very good, he will pick up from your tone of voice or your body language that you don't mean it. Save your praise for when you can give it fully and honestly.

Kids don't have the experience that we have and misunderstandings are easy to create. So praise that is SPECIFIC will help your child more than generalizations. Saying that you appreciated your child's help with the chores will mean more to him if you say exactly which bits of what he did were so helpful.
Children have a different perception of time than do adults. Praise is best served warm! When you see your child doing something great - tell him so as soon as you can, and keep your praise TIMELY. On the flip side, beware of giving constant praise when there is no reason for it. Your child will be more motivated if your praise is associated with genuine effort on his part, rather than appearing at random intervals no matter what he does.
Why not watch yourself as you praise your child today and see if you are managing to make your praise:

• Honest
• Specific
• Timely

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Can too Much Praise Harmful to Children???

I have always believed in giving my kids all the praise I can, thinking as I am sure a lot of parents do that it would be good for their self-esteem. Now I am going to have to do a bit of rethinking about this because a recent study suggests that too much praise can actually do some harm and make a child afraid of failure.

As quoted by ABC News report "For the study, researchers divided 128 fifth-graders into groups and gave them a simple IQ test. One group was told it did really well and must be very smart. The other group was told it did really well and must have worked hard. One group was praised for intelligence, the other for effort.

Asked if they wanted to take a slightly harder test, the kids praised for their intelligence were reluctant. Of those praised for their effort, however, 90 percent were eager for a more challenging task. And on a final test the effort group performed significantly better than the group praised for its intelligence.

Many of the kids who had been labeled "smart" performed worst of all. The "hard workers" got the message that they could improve their scores by trying harder, but the "smart" kids believed they should do well without any effort. "

So the bottom line is that praising a child did not give them more confidence or make them perform any better.

It is actually better to be honest with your kids if they do not perform well. Praise should be more for their effort, their concentration and their strategies.

I don't know about you but for me this is easier said then done!!!!

Happy Parenting

Monicka

Catch your Kids doing something Good Today

Once upon a time there was a Naughty little boy. Not only was he Naughty, but he was very Sneaky too. His Mommy and Daddy had to keep a very close eye on him, to catch him doing Naughty things and tell him off or send him to his room.

The Naughty boy had a lot of fun doing Naughty things, but deep down he wasn't happy because he sometimes wondered how his Mommy and Daddy could love him when he was so Naughty. In fact his Mommy and Daddy loved him very much - more than anything in the world - but they were very sad to always catch him doing Naughty things. "If only our Naughty little boy would be better behaved," they said, "we would all have so much more fun together."

One day the Naughty little boy's Daddy - who had an important job in an office - was summoned by the Man who Daddy worked for. "Oh-Oh!" Thought Daddy. "I hope he's not going to tell me off - I wonder what I could have done wrong?"

But instead of telling Daddy off, the Man said he had caught Daddy doing something specially good at work, and he gave him something very nice. The something was a Golden Nugget of Praise. The Nugget made Daddy feel very happy, and he took it home with him in his pocket.

That evening, Daddy was thinking about his Golden Nugget of Praise and how happy it made him feel, and he decided that he wanted to catch someone else doing something good, and give them their own Golden Nugget of Praise too.

Just as he was thinking this, he saw Mommy helping the Naughty little boy with his homework before bed. "That deserves a Golden Nugget of Praise," thought Daddy. So after the Naughty little boy went to bed, Daddy gave Mommy a Golden Nugget of Praise, and said, "I caught you being a great Mommy, helping our son with his homework, and so I wanted to give you this Golden Nugget of Praise."

Mommy felt very happy and put her Golden Nugget in her pocket and gave Daddy a big hug.

Now the neat thing about Golden Nuggets of Praise is that when you give one to someone, it doesn't use up the one you have in your pocket. So now Daddy had one in his pocket and so did Mommy.

Mommy had an idea. "Do you think we could give our Naughty little boy some Nuggets?" she asked.

Daddy thought this was a wonderful idea. "We love our little boy so much. Even though he is a very Naughty little boy, maybe if we watch him very, very carefully, we'll catch him doing something Good, and then every time we catch him, we can give him a Golden Nugget of Praise. Just think how happy he will feel!"

So from that day forward, Mommy and Daddy were always watching their Naughty little boy very carefully, and every time they saw him do something Good - they would give him a Golden Nugget of Praise. And every time, the Naughty little boy felt so happy, that he became a little less Naughty every day.

Before long, the Naughty little boy wasn't sneaky anymore, and was hardly ever Naughty, and everyone started calling him the Good little boy because he was so polite and thoughtful. He became a very kind little boy as well, and he often caught his friends doing something good, and gave them one of his Golden Nuggets of Praise to keep, which of course didn't even make the Golden Nuggets in his own pockets any less, because of the magical quality of the Golden Nuggets, how when you give one away you magically still get to keep it too.

And when people asked Mommy and Daddy how come their little boy was such a Good little boy, they just smiled, and touched their own Golden Nuggets, that they always carried in their pockets, and said, "We just love catching our little boy whenever he does something Good!"

cyberhugs,

Cassie