In praise of praise

She comes running to her parent "Look I made a painting"
"Oh yes, that is really very nice".
Here is what the child might think:
"Does she really mean it"? (doubting the praiser)
"Its not nice, she doesn't actually like it"? (doubting the praise)
"Nice, it's actually quite bad, I am not good at painting"! (doubting the praised)
"She is not interested. She wants to get rid of me"! (doubting the intention - manipulation)
"I don’t know how will I make painting this good again"? (doubting the future)
It's highly unlikely that the child will really feel nice about it. Its almost equivalent to getting a praise that "the dinner was great" when you know it was possibly just OK. One just enters the realm of doubting.

I remember in one of our workshops I told a girl that her story was really good. She came back to me and asked "Is it really good?". I replied "Its quite superb, I quite like it". With a still stern face she repeated "But I don’t think so.!"

The more extravagantly we praise, the lesser we seem to get through. Praise is SUPPOSED to encourage. Children are SUPPOSED to feel good about it. Then why mostly it falls FLAT?

This happens because they don’t know WHAT is GOOD and they are dying to know exactly that.
Just tell them WHAT is GOOD and they will appreciate themselves!

Examples:

Instead of "that is really very nice", lets say, "I really like the way you have drawn the clouds, and this river is just flowing so beautifully, and that orange is such a pretty colour for flowers." "I am quite a good painter. Let me do more" is the expected self-encouragement.

Instead of "you were terrific in the game today", lets say, "I really liked the way you handled the ball at the end of the game, and also how hard you were running all through out…… "I am a good player. Let me practice more" is the self-praise. Isn't this so beautiful - three simple steps to attain complete celebration of your young one's spirit:

1. Invest small (really small) amount of our time to stop and look at what is really nice.
2. Then tell that to them - DESCRIBE some thing SPECIFIC.
3. Then just sit back and watch the young one shine and bask in self-glory It works wonders. Do it today!

By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com

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