Or is it really ok to praise your children?

[Iwasjustabouttosaythat]

Inspired by a thread where someone stated their DM was too positive about them while growing up. They didn't say any more than that but I'm wondering if anyone here has had a similar experience?

Having had a super critical/nasty DM who hugely impacted my self-confidence I can't help but do the opposite with my children and let them know how much I adore them.

I know there are a few books around at the moment which say you're setting your kids up to fail if you praise them too much, but to me they really are amazing so I tell them what I think honestly. AIBU?

Have you been on the receiving end of lots of love and praise? Never told you're fat or wouldn't be good at some things so don't bother? How has the praise affected you?

I'm a teacher and recent studies have shown that praise for specific things the child has put effort into a very helpful fm for their growth.

I think NT children see through empty praise and then it becomes counter productive. I think too much praise over inflates the ego and causes narcissism

Yes to both. Not a teacher but have read into this a bit and reached the same conclusion. The "You're so smart!" type of praise is harmful at worst.

is good on this.

It's not about the praise, it's about everything else along with the praise. You can praise your kids for anything and everything but need to behave suitably when they have done something bad too. It's all balance and to raise a balanced child ready for the world they need to know about everything (Ie. what is naughty, what other people do and why, why their friends are treated differently and why they don't get a gift just because their sibling did etc), not just the good bits.

In the west we (particularly the UK) we are obsessed about promoting and protecting our children's self-esteem, yet studies show that our children rate fairly low.

We have lived abroad and several countries (in terms of school teachers) utterly appalled me initially. Young dc told that their work was appalling, not enough effort (I'm talking reception aged children) had to redo it etc. The reverse was also true; when the teacher saw that full effort had been exerted children were praised; not in a gushy, loud way; but it was acknowledged. I noticed that these children generally had very good self-esteem. They felt no shame in saying "I'm not good art art, but I am good in Maths" or vice versa. They seemed to want to better themselves too.

My DM used to tell me and Dsis that were were beautiful enough to win the Miss World competition.

We were both sensible enough to take this with a pinch of salt. But, still, it came as a bit of a shock at 19 to realise I wasn't model material. I mean, really, WTF?!

But she only did that because her own mother used to criticise her all the time.

Hopefully I have found a happy medium. I praise my children when they have tried hard at something, when they've been good, when they've been kind. I tell them I adore them and why they are so great. I will sometimes go to eat them all up and tell them how yummy and cute they are.

But I never tell them they are beautiful. I hope that's not wrong. I don't want them to think it matters. Or that they should be beautiful.

I'm not afraid to tell them when they don't put in enough effort either. I will admit to having said the words "That's not good enough, you can do better. Try again". It feels harsh, but I think when it's true it needs to be said.

Forgot to add that I have an acquaintence with a pfb who is completely and utterly obsessed with her child's self esteem. She teaches an after school activity (that her pfb also attends) and if she says anything positive about any child her dc immediately is crestfallen and she then has to say something even better and louder about her. It often involves the activity being stopped whilst her dc showcases herself. It is as if she can't bear to hear anything positive about someone else as she has become so dependent on praise herself.

Not a parent so take this with a pinch of salt, but. I grew up with a loving family who didn't excel at praise. It was always, "that's great but here's how to do better". I have terrible pressure and self esteem issues that I'm working on. So I agree with all the people talking about praise and specific praise being excellent, I'd have liked that.

But there's one kind of pathetic thing I'd have really liked. No one in my family ever once told me I was pretty/looked nice, etc. Now, I don't think it's good to say this often, and we shouldn't focus on looks, but actually it would have been really great and saved quite a bit of teen heartache if someone could have did "you have a lovely smile/nice eyes/ do your make up really nicely" just once.

Literally the first time I knew my mum thought I looked OK was when she said "well you were always the bonny one" in an offhand comment at my sister's wedding. (Who looked gorgeous, btw)

See, told you it was pathetic. But I'm a world obsessed with how we look it's nice to hear nice things about your physical self occasionally.

As an adult, do you appreciate being thanked for a job well done; being told that you have been kind or supportive to a friend; when someone notices that you tried hard to make a special meal (even if it didn't end up like the picture in the recipe)?

Or do you thrive on only being noticed when someone else thinks you've fucked up?

I know which approach brings out the best in me and it is the one I use with my DCs too.

Oh and fwiw, reasonably objectively, I'm perfectly nice looking with a bit of slap on but not going to stop traffic 😊

I think of course we have to think our children are amazing etc, that's our job however it cannot be a good thing at all to over praise or outright bullshit about things. When my DS is practising music I will tell him the truth. At first he would say does that mean it's rubbish and I would say no its really good but to make it better you need to do this. I think we probably overdid the praise when they were tiny and at 9/10 he needed to realise he has to be able to be realistic too.

A (ex) friend used to tell her DS and anyone else who would listen how clever he was and actually used the words genius. Unfortunately academically in reality he struggled. Already he has huge self esteem issues as he is constantly told how amazing and clever he is, plus is never disciplined so cannot handle not being top of the class or being told off etc. She will go into school if he's told off and tell the teacher they are out of order as he's not -that' naughty. It's really sad to see.

I agree with theproblem too. A fabulous teacher once said to me, I know Ofsted are all about the next steps and how to improve but sometimes we just have to say, that's brilliant, that's the best you could have done at that point in time and worry about the next steps another day.

The one thing I always remember my mum saying when I was a child (in the midst of pretty excellent parenting all the time) was that she would love me even if I committed murder. I was probably about 6 years old and it was a relevation to me and the first moment I understood unconditional love, but her saying that has always stayed with me.

I agree with a lot of the above. I was a "clever" child. I was always praised for being clever. I never learned how to apply my "cleverness", or to combine it with effort in order to equal achievements. I got there in the end, but I had a lot of stress and failures in order to achieve anything, and in the end it was on my own, and not really due to parental support. Also if I didn't do well at something it was later turned against me "oh we thought you were so clever...", whilst giving me no resources to turn it around.

As a result I try and praise my dc for making good choices, working hard, being kind, showing resilience, perseverance, and small improvements that have come as the result of effort. Obviously I also praise them for just being them, and notice if they have an ability at something, and throw in a lot of "well done". But I try very hard to balance it with the idea that no one can expect to coast or be automatically "good" at things. It's a horrible feeling to 'fail' at the thing you're supposed to be "good at". Much better to realise early it often requires something more, and I want my praise to be supportive and constructive for them.

Agree it is important to stop and acknowledge something good and celebrate it. I think it is fine to compliment anything, including looks, as long as it is balanced and doesn't become a focus, or a negative thing eventually.

My MILs idea of a compliment is "you've done worse" and i can see myself getting the same.
My son is very clever and as lazy as myself (my very worst trait) so it is really hard to praise effort when I never see him make any.

I think fran above makes a good point about being able to celebrate others as well as oneself. I remember recently my ds coming home from school on the day of an event/competition, having obtained a middling place, but being obviously proud of a classmate who had won. :) That both made my extremely (quietly) proud of him and was a revelation, as I, like the child fran mentions, have (embarrassingly) always struggled a bit with others doing well in fields that matter to me, but I suspect for opposite reasons (relentless perfectionism and feeling I don't measure up).

I think an abundance of indiscriminate praise is unhelpful and worse, detrimental.

I praise effort and I praise outcomes that have been achieved through effort. And the rest gets a cursory nod.

Bloody minefield!

Its the way its done as pp said - praise the hard work and effort as well as the end result.

As pp said pick out particular things to praise they have done too, make it varied.

Even reward charts are under critical gaze now for teaching child to do things for reward.

My boss once commented in conversation that she doesn't praise her children, ever. That was a lightbulb moment for me as she is a horrible boss and I find her incredibly hard to work for. I cannot thrive without any praise, so my work goes downhill. She does do criticism, which increases as my work deteriorates. God only knows what it's like being her child maybe if you ever leave that job you could give her some feedback !!!! dreadful what the hell is wrong with people!!

The one thing I always remember my mum saying when I was a child (in the midst of pretty excellent parenting all the time) was that she would love me even if I committed murder. I was probably about 6 years old and it was a relevation to me and the first moment I understood unconditional love, but her saying that has always stayed with me.

I remember my mum saying this too! I believe she said that if I murdered someone she 'wouldn't like me, but would still love me'. I'm not quite sure what I took from that...

I'm thinking about this a lot at the moment as I had very low self confidence growing up and really want to help my DC be more confident. However, neither do I want them to be self centred narcissists.

I think there's a lot in what a PP said about not just considering what you say to the child but what you say about yourself and others. When I was a child I was frequently praised for academic achievement (although my parents always wanted to know how this compared with others- first was clearly better). I can't think of a time that they praised anything else though. It was seen as just a bit of fun when my brothers mocked me for my looks, lack of sporting ability, being 'boring' etc. My DM also had incredible double standards. I was encouraged to be the best academically, given strict rules on what I could wear and where I could go etc as a teen to make sure that I would not get in to trouble. Yet I overheard numerous discussions between her and friends/extended family where she would make positive comments on how good other teens looked (in clothes that she would not let me have), how there were more important things than good grades, how amusing and clever other teens' misbehaviour was despite the fact that she would have gone crazy if I'd done anything similar (together with comments like- well you wouldn't want her to be boring).

So I think I got the message that I was good at school work but other than that a pretty useless boring person. I'm sure that actually DM just wanted me to have good life chances and didn't want to challenge friends/family who had a different approach with their DC. But all this did was make my do some stupid stuff in an attempt to prove that I was not boring.

There is another aspect of praise.

We can talk about how it makes us feel, or about how it makes them feel.

Is it better to say that we are proud of them (implying they do it for us) or that they should be proud of themselves (implying they should be doing it for themselves and the satisfaction it gives them)?

Empty praise is not just worthless, its actively damaging. At best it teaches your kids to distrust you, at worst it damages them.

I'm an adult survivor of too much praise ;-) I'm not sure if it was empty or gushing. The former implies that it was not really meant, just words, and the latter implies it was OTT. My parents weren't like that at all. But I was very very aware that how well I did academically was very important to my parents (especially to my mum) and the aspects of my behaviour that they praised were definitely the ones that they wanted to me to excel at (and to be able to brag about).

I read Unconditional Parenting (Alfie Kohn) a while ago and it was a real lightbulb moment. He talks about children, who have been praised for being clever / getting high marks, growing up to be people who don't know what they like or what they actually want to do because they've always gone for the option that got them the most praise. So never taking chances, never trying anything new or untested. Never stepping outside the tight box of what I'm already good at. That's me. I got all the way to doing a PhD before I realised that I really really didn't want to be an academic or do anything related to my field. My sister had a breakdown when she failed to get a job in her field (after completing a post-Doc) because she was so stressed about how she'd let our parents down by 'failing'. It's crazy. And the saddest thing is I know my parents thought they were doing the right thing - my mum's mum didn't praise her at all and basically wasn't interested in anything she did, so she went the opposite way with us.

So I am trying to do it differently with my boys. I try to praise effort (though the words sounds alien and fake to me) rather than achievement. I try to be non-committal about their academic successes, and neutral when they don't get A*. I try to help them find what they like to do rather than just doing what wins them the highest marks. But it's hard. I feel like I am letting them down or lying to them if I don't tell them that I believe academic stuff is important. I've certainly not cracked the Unconditional Parenting thing.

Chocfish72

Interesting post.

I came by the issue of praise, initially through higher education training, in relation to students who struggle when they get to higher education and crash because they are used to being the best and also associate success with being valued by others, particularly their parents.

A colleague of mine killed herself in college, possibly because she felt wasn't performing as she should. (from something she said a few days earlier, but there may have been deeper issues)

Sorry, been busy....

I'm not sure if they do know I'm making a conscious effort to be kind, tbh. My counsellor reckons that insincerity radiates out and everyone sees it, which makes me desperately anxious as half the time I'm just saying what I think people want me to say. If I'm going to get in shit with them anyway for not putting on a good enough pretence then I may as well not fucking bother to pretend in the first place

Someone said to say what comes naturally: most of what I want to say naturally is vicious, cutting and bitchy. I spend the majority of my time not being myself for just this reason.