You’ve just praised your child for doing something good and you’re congratulating yourself for being such a thoughtful parent, when without warning, he/she does something worse than ever! What in the world is going on here? Wasn’t the praise that you so alertly dispensed a positive parental response? And aren’t positive responses supposed to produce more positive behaviors in children? Well, yes, usually. This is however one of the exceptions to that general principle.

It will be helpful to look at the difference between praise and encouragement. Praise focuses on performance and the finished product, while encouragement focuses on effort and improvement.

Sometimes when a child is praised, he/she will immediately turn around and misbehave in some way. This occurs if a child has low personal esteem. This child, does not believe that he/she is worthy of the praise and so will seek to undo it by misbehaving or by doing something that will irritate or displease the parent.

It is not wrong to praise, but be aware that it may backfire.

Encouragement will promote a serving attitude, praise will not.

It is always safe to encourage, and modeling being an encourager will benefit all concerned.

Consider this scenario: Your child brings his just completed model airplane (there is glue all over the place, the wing is on crooked and the tail is on backwards) to you and he says, “Didn’t I do a good job?” What do you say? If you say yes, you’d not be telling the truth, and in fact, your child would know that you’re not telling the truth. If you say no, he’d probably be crushed. What you could say is:

“It looks to me as if you’ve put a lot of work into this model, didn’t you?”

Yes, I sure did, I tried really hard”, he replied.

“Did it turn out like you wanted it to”?, you ask.

“No, I couldn’t get the wing on like the picture showed”, he said.

“What would you have to do to make your next model turn out more the way that you wanted?”, you question.

“Well, I think that if I took more time and gave the glue longer to dry, it would look better”, he said.

“I think that you’ve got a very good plan, I’m very proud of you”.

This child will be encouraged to continue his efforts whether it be constructing model planes, or doing anything that is improved through practice.

Become an encourager. It is a win win situation. The encourager and the encouraged will benefit.

Lowell E. Becker, M.D.
Child and Family Psychiatrist