Too Much of a Good Thing
Dad, this article is for you and anyone else that is sick of all the supercilious praise that is out there. With that said, I too am guilty of praising my son in a huge way when he gives me kisses. And goes down the slide, and makes a window shattering siren noise, and geez have you seen him spit recently? Ok there is no praise for the spitting but it seems that my constructive comments are essentially as meaningless as a praise for a "good" hug.
posted by Franny @ 5:32 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Thanks for sharing this very interesting article. Some of the ideas align with the work of Alfie Kohn. Kohn, a social psychologist, has found that incentives can diminish the intrinsic love of learning and encourage kids to "play it safe" rather than try to stretch themselves intellectually.
I think it is good for parents to provide their children unconditional love and acceptance. How, when and why to praise are
matters that can best be considered as part of a larger parenting framework.
As you know, I tried to encourage learning irrespective of grades and test results. Since schools tend to focus on test results (especially the tests required by the nonsensical No Child Left Behind act), perhaps it is even more important now for parents to help their children to work at answering 4 questions:
What did you learn?
Why is what you learned important?
How can you apply what you learned?
What "next steps" can you take to increase your level of understanding?
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