I'm having a week of it, I know...but.....(school awards)

[Basketofchocolate]

I find it sad (but I do understand why) that DS comes home with acknowledgement that he is normal (all pupils get a sticker at end of term with one of 3 or 4 bland things on) i.e. he is one of the 3 or 4 things that every other child is. He didn't get a certificate for 100% attendance so that's just it. No recognition for his hard work for his academic achievements. Not even privately from the teachers.

I know he's still young (just finished Yr 1) but was wondering why school don't acknowledge it. He knows he's different and that he struggles in other areas, such as social skills so it seems sensible to praise in areas where he is doing well to help self-esteem.

We have told him we're very proud, etc. but....I don't know just having a week of annoyance with the school and stressing about next year already!

I have to bite my tongue sometimes because I even catch myself doing it (perfectionism regarding the children). Ds2 got 99% on the recent KS2 level 3-5 maths and a similar results for the L6.

The teacher asked to see me last week so that she could show me his raw scores. When she showed them to me, and was clearly looking for me to show pleasure, I must have seemed very graceless. Instead of thinking wow, that's great, I was doing my level best not to remark that he'd got a couple of questions wrong! I hope I managed to say the right thing because all I can remember was exerting self-control not to say the wrong thing!

Being praised for being one of the cleverest in primary school can be really unhelpful in the long term. Primary school is where the work is easiest.

Getting lots of praise for doing easy work with one hand tied behind your back, rather than for effort, means you've got nowhere to go but down as the work gets harder and requires effort even from you.

As a child I basked in that sort of praise, but with hindsight I wish the focus had been much more on praise for hard work, planning, original thinking and so on.

I've spent years seeing myself as failing simply because I grew up thinking that getting very high marks easily and doing a lot better than most people around me were the definition of doing well, with anything less counting as a kind of failure.

It's so unhelpful, and I feel strongly that the self-esteem boost from being praised more when younger doesn't make it worthwhile.

It is possible to be delighted with a child's high marks but praise them mainly for the effort they've put in. You needn't dismiss the high marks achieved without effort, so much as just not focus on those ones much, but rather focus mainly on the ones where some other input like effort or good planning or a good original idea have contributed.

In the long run you'll be doing your child a favour.

I think you are right, circlesea. Actually, i don't think anyone has disagreed with what you've said.

However, what happens if the work set - within a particular subject - never gives the opportunity to put in any significant amount of effort, apart from aiming to get 100% every time?

Aiming to be perfect is very bad for you. Trying hard to do your best is good. But what happens when the latter is not available? Ignore altogether or praise perfectionism??

var I think sometimes though when it's too easy kids make silly mistakes through them not considering it worth the effort. I do it now with writing, I know I can write perfectly constructed, correct and well thought out content but only bother to do so if I deem it beneficial, there's no challenge in it as I know I can do it when required, neither does grammar etc particularly interest me. So I'm not motivated to try and do it for its own sake. Dd appears to be the same about written work, pulls out all the stops when needed but otherwise doesn't bother too much.
circle I went to primary when my academic achievement was constantly praised, and the child with sn called naughty and badly behaved for getting work wrong. Even at secondary while teachers hated me they did publicly bask in my achievements as a (false) reflection of their great teaching.
What I took from education at 18 was the attitude University would be more of the same boring and simple crap, because that was the impression I had of formal learning, and no way was I willingly signing up for more. I'd trusted secondary would be better, then trusted sixth form would, and been let down. I went to uni years after when I realised that was just my experience of a crap school and not reality.

"Aiming to be perfect is very bad for you. Trying hard to do your best is good. But what happens when the latter is not available? Ignore altogether or praise perfectionism??"

I think it's about the effort, again. Making an effort to get perfect marks is still effort and you praise that effort, not the perfection itself. It's not even a bad goal to have, if you see a perfect score as a goal to work towards not the minimum you're allowed to get. Having full marks plus a beautifully written name and having laid out working very clearly - all that can take praiseworthy effort. Aiming high is good.

If someone didn't have to work hard to get something perfect (a basic 100% score on a computer worksheet that's too easy for them), and you know they didn't, then there's not as much to praise as if you know they put the effort in. If you do praise highly in that situation, I'm not sure you're even praising perfectionism, so much as just a perfect result for its own sake. That's what's damaging in my view.

I think maybe it also ties in with planning - in years to come an extra 20 hours work to chase the final 0.5% of marks will sometimes be an excellent use of time, and sometimes not. I think the damaging kind of perfectionism comes from pursuing perfection for its own sake because you're terrified of getting anything less, regardless of how disproportionate the time and stress you need to put in to get that are.

Aiming high is fine if you're making intelligent decisions about how to spend your time and are not actually afraid of not getting a perfect result in some situations.

If I had a child who was effortlessly getting nearly perfect marks in school tests with no opportunities for him to be stretched, then I would probably respond positively in a low key way to him having got them all right, but I would praise much more strongly a lower mark on something done at home that was of a higher level, where he'd really had to work.

Obviously I would be as annoyed as anyone else if he could only get that more challenging work at home, but I'd still really really want to avoid giving the impression that as parents we were 'delighted' with the school marks because they were perfect, while only being 'encouraging' over the not-yet-perfect home marks.

I do think it's about reserving the highest praise for effort, it doesn't have to mean not acknowledging good results at all.

I think we all agree that effort is what is best to praise, in the younger years and especially when older.

However, I think we also agree that pitching the self-esteem boosting right is important too. The difficulty does come when there is no effort required for a child at school. Sadly, that's a problem at some schools where the work is not of a sufficiently high level to ensure the child has to put some effort in.

Some do have more natural ability than others. A exceedingly high IQ can make work easy for some and difficult for others (if other probs also exist) but those who find academic work easy at a young age are often also behind with social skills, so fitting in, self-esteem, etc. are really key.

At my son's age (Yr 1), sports day requires no effort - they do not practice or know what they will need to do on the day. Those who win are naturally more able (age, size, etc.) and get rewarded for winning. Those naturally able in other things are not rewarded. I think we all agree that consistency is key and having something to aim for in the area you are more naturally able is usually the path most people follow.

I know a few people who are naturally able academically who have not been 'successful' in careers as they have been lacking the social skills required to climb the slippery pole, or do not know who to deal with their intelligence, how to make the most of it as well as how to deal with failure. It certainly does not match that those academically able will fly through life successfully and happily.

For my son, he is given work that he claims he finds 'hard'. The teacher says it's not 'hard' for him, but maybe he says that as he actually has to make some effort. Which I completely agree he should be doing. I certainly don't want him to cruise along never understanding what it takes to make a real effort and see what he can make of something. What I find difficult is that when he is making an effort on work that is 2-3yrs ahead of his peers it is not seen as worthy of any sort of recognition. I understand that it is difficult for the school to bring it up in assembly, but I spoke to him about the end of year and it seems that the teachers (his class teacher, the TA and the maths teacher) didn't make any special mention to him directly. I think it might have been good for his confidence to be told that he has been doing well. After all, it also requires effort that he has to go to a different class every day for maths, integrate in that class (a year above) have his timetable messed about, miss out on break times, etc. when timetables clash and so on. The sheer effort of asking a 6yr old to find their way to another class on time every day and deal with two new classes each year when they struggle with friendships could at least have warranted some praise.

I think we do all agree where and when kids should be given praise but have all probably had our eyes open to the differences in schools, what happens at primary, secondary, etc. and that it's tricky to get it right for every child in every setting.

Isn't that an arse though! Wish all kids had what they needed when they needed it (and no, not talking plastic Frozen toys! ) and that school wasn't such a damned lottery!

A lot of praise can come from home too. I got my praise from my parents not teachers.

I was academically gifted and recognise a lot of this. sailed through the work at school and university, have since struggled a lot more with paid work. Interpersonal skills and self management are my downfall!

One of my DC has SEN and is behind, the other is doing well but not "beyond the norm". in your shoes think I'd be focusing mainly on whether the school provides enough challenging work.