Damn with praise

I’ve just enjoyed an article that I think can encourage us all to re-consider how we interact with others (and not just with children, although that is the focus of the article).

http://www.naturalchild.org/robin_grille/rewards_praise.html

It critiques the manipulative culture of praise and rewards , showing how when we are rewarded for doing something we then become less likely to do it outside of getting that reward, whereas we once perhaps did it JUST BECAUSE WE ENJOYED IT!! We can become addicted to the approval of others, and feel loss when we are not praised, and start to do things just to impress others not because we want to do it. Particularly of interest for me is how damaging it can be to praise someone’s potential with phrases such as “I know you can do it” or “you’re getting better!” as the implication is that they are not yet good enough and need to improve. It has always been important to me that my children know they are already good enough. I don’t manage it all the time by any means – I have used bribery, including emotional bribery, and I have rewarded behaviour that I want. But I did ask the other day what it is they thought they’d have to do to make me proud of them/love them more both now and in the future, and both were clear that there was nothing they would have to do, that I wouldn’t love them any more if they did or didn’t get a job/pass exams/have a partner/tidy their bedrooms etc etc.

I'm much better now at noticing when i'm wanting other people's approval and it would be fab if i could raise my children so they were less motivated by it. The article instead proposes we affirm others through appreciating them and suggests various helpful strategies such as by using I statements (I could do a lot better on this, I often say "You’re a star” when with more effort I could tell someone what it is I appreciate about them.) It can also help to encourage the other person to reflect on how they feel about it/what they are pleased with (I am good at doing this – go me!!!) or help them to notice eg you look like you enjoyed that.

I think it’s really tricky for any of us to get away from rewarding - it happens quite a bit in schools where to date I’ve managed to resist some of it – homework for housepoints is still optional , and I never insist they do it, preferring to let them do whatever project they currently are excited by (this week it has been constructing a monopoly-style board game that includes the ownership of planets and even the universe…)

Our whole culture is coated in it for us as adults too – the advertising phrase that annoys me most is “because you’re worth it”, as I want to scream – what, and the woman who walks miles each day to get clean water for her family and has no money for food let alone a hair product (if that’s what it is for?)- what, she isn’t worth it????? Why is it we are encouraged to think we “deserve” to reward ourselves? This to me is about profit-making out of attempts to fill our insecure “holes” at its most blatant. Grrrrrrrrrr.