Too much praising?

[mrshibbins]

had huge row with OH yesterday because he sees my refusal to lie about SD's abilities as me being horrid and mean to her. I see this as being honest with her. we were out for a meal, and a family friend said to her 'I bet you are good at sport, aren't you?' and my SD said 'mmm, no...' and I said I 'ummm not really' and my OH said "Yes, she's brilliant at sport." In fact she hates sport, wont catch a ball, and sees all sport as not being 'girly' and just generally makes no effort, moans all the time if she has to even walk anywhere...

This is part of an ongoing problem with us - he absolutely lavishes praise upon his DD, about anything and everything, which I think just devalues the praise and is giving her totally unrealistic ideas about her abilities. She is an insufferably conceited child but also I think he is turning her into a praise junky - she just can't live without it.

I firmly believe that you shouldn't give children unrealistic ideas about their abilities, but that doesn't mean to say I won't encourage her to be better at what she needs to improve, or to praise her at what she really IS good at.

WTF? Am I doing this wrong? Should you tell children they are wonderful at everything regardless?

[BonsoirAnna]

I think you need to raise this issue with your OH. You are quite right that unwarranted praise does children no good at all - praise is great, but you must praise children only when it is justified.

[prettyfly1]

No - you shouldnt and I dont believe in doing that either - anyone who thinks that is a way to raise children - be they yours or someone elses - should watch the mums on x factor who send their children like lambs to the slaughter on national tv and praise them to the hilt when they quite clearly have the talent at singing of ants. These kids might be brilliant in other areas but their parents should have been honest with them - we all have to face that there are things we just cant do and its healthy to do it. HOWEVER might a kinder thing to have done be say something along the lines of

"sport isnt really .......thing but she is a very gifted........." - thus highlighting her real strengths ??

[msled]

Well, she doesn't sound that conceited if her first reaction was to say that no, she wasn't good at sport! I'm not sure why either of you needed to answer for her, esp to tell someone she wasn't good at something. I don't think that is ever necessary. I bet you'd hate it if someone said, 'are you good at cooking' and your friend butted in to say, 'god no, she's rubbish!' - even if you are!
Do you have kids as well?

[2rebecca]

I agree that if she's old enough to really know if she's good at sport or not (and often I think it's more a matter of finding a sport that suits you. I'm good at some sports but rubbish at others but didn't discover the sports I was good at until my late teens) then she's old enough to answer for herself. You should both back off.