Yes!! You read it right.
We all want our children to develop a positive self- image, and we also know that a positive self- image is related to feeling good about accomplishments. Undoubtedly, we concentrate on evaluating our children’s job and want them to feel good about what they have done. The most natural thing is to praise the child in the hope that the child will feel great about him and be assured that a positive self- image has been loaded well.
Some of us view praise as so important that even when a child does a bad job, we think that a child needs praise to encourage him.
For example – a 6 year old is busy trying his hand at coloring. He doesn’t enjoys it at all and is pretty comfortable with this fact. It was just one of those days, when he couldn’t think of anything but put his hands on a new coloring book and a big box of crayons he got as a gift. It was all scribbles. Dad visited the room to see his son busy and so engrossed in drawing, that flashes of his son becoming a great artist started crossing his mind. And in that splurge he comments, “Wonderful piece of art!! It’s superb.” No doubt the child wondered,
· What’s wrong with Dad?
· Why is he lying?
· Doesn’t he know what a good drawing is?
Ultimately, that false praise led to nothing but – disrespect!
Rather, in the same scenario, instead of praising, if the dad would have encouraged the child by asking questions like, “what are you busy at? It seems you are trying your coloring skills? You should be taking it more often as I see, you can do it. Let me know if you need more colors.”
The child in this case, would have surely given his dad’s suggestion a second thought.
Praise is judgmental. Encouragement is not. If a child has a poor self- image, praise causes the child to react because the praising comment does not fit with the child’s self-image. Child thinks that the adult is just trying to make him feel better and he doesn’t really know him. Instead, if such a child is encouraged by remarks like, “how do you think you did? I feel you did good.” it empowers child to introspect and he feels more competent.
Praise isn’t bad, but it is more about external evaluation. While encouragement builds good feelings from inside.
Praise is always in the form of statements which doesn’t give any fodder to the little growing mind. Encouragement, in the form of questions let the child explore him. It opens the channel between the child and adult to discuss and evaluate further. Example – “How did you figure that out? How do you think you will handle it next time?” etc etc.
All this doesn’t mean that Praise should not happen –it should, it must. But, a “genuine” one.
Feel free to encourage, no matter the task at hand has been done to perfection or is imperfect.
Though we want our children to be perfect but we forget that we all are by products of our imperfections.
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