NYTimes.com Article: New Advice for Parents: Saying `That's Great!' May Not Be

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New Advice for Parents: Saying `That's Great!' May Not Be
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/18/national/18PRAI.html

October 18, 2000

By PAM BELLUCK

MONROE, Iowa   Five-year-old Cristina bounced up to her preschool
teacher in this quiet Iowa farm town, waved her crayon drawing
dotted with brightly colored stickers and asked, "What do you think
of my picture?" 

 The teacher, Sharon Doolittle, looked enthusiastically, but was
careful not to offer praise.

 Instead, she said: "I see you drew a black wagon. What are you
going to put in that black wagon?"

 In a classroom in Moorpark, Calif., when the preschoolers
successfully clean up the play kitchen, Jennifer Parker does not
tell them, "good job," she said. "I say, `I notice you put all of
the dishes and all of the food back where it belongs. Next time you
want to play with those, you'll be able to find them.' "

 And in Manhattan, Fran Spector, a first-grade teacher at the
Ethical Culture School, took a similar tack on a bus trip to the
Central Park conservatory garden. After a couple of her students
offered their seats to people who were standing, Ms. Spector said,
"I did not say `That was great.' I said, `Did you notice how
appreciative the people were?' " 

 For years, parents and teachers got the message that children
should be praised at almost any opportunity, that saying "good job"
for everything from sharing snacks to sliding down a slide raises
self-esteem. Some guides said praise encouraged desirable behavior,
like buckling a seat belt or cleaning one's room. Some schools
displayed posters saying "Praise every child every day."

 But in a sea change from the gestalt of recent decades, many
educators and child psychologists are concluding that less praise
is often better and frequent praise for unexceptional actions can
actually have a negative impact on children.

 "Praising every time lowers a child's motivation," said Dr. Ron
Taffel, a Manhattan psychologist and author of "Nurturing Good
Children Now." "It cheapens the praise, and children become
dependent on praise."

 For example, Dr. Taffel said, he sees children sledding in Central
Park with parents "screaming at the top of their lungs: `great job,
phenomenal sledding, that was the best I've ever seen.' The
children were being praised for responding to the laws of gravity."


 Some child-rearing experts say a steady stream of praise can turn
children into praise addicts who lack confidence because they
dismiss the value of the compliments. They say praise intended to
reinforce good behavior can make children feel manipulated and less
likely to keep up good habits in the long run. And they say
sometimes children praised for a creative or academic task become
less motivated to pursue it, because they feel pressure or are
afraid they will not live up to expectations.

 "In the effort to help children feel good about themselves,
parents will praise more than is appropriate," said Fretta Reitzes,
director of the Goldman Center for Youth and Family at the 92nd
Street Y.M.-Y.W.H.A., who thinks praise caught on partly because
working mothers want their time with their children "to be full of
smiles and hugs," she said. "Being a whole human being means having
strengths, but also realizing that others may be better tennis
players or better clarinetists. When kids begin to really
experience their own frailty, parents are often disappointed  
`What did I do wrong? I praised you and praised you. I told you you
were wonderful and you're falling apart.' "

 These experts do not advocate more criticism, and say genuine
praise for noteworthy effort or accomplishment is good. But often,
they say, it is better to give encouragement, offering descriptions
or asking questions in a way that shows interest, yet allows
children to judge themselves. Avoid praise that evaluates the child
("You're so smart") or injects the speaker ("I like the way you
behaved").

 "What is helpful is when something they've actually done is
recognized and acknowledged   and the particulars are mentioned,"
said Dr. Richard M. Ryan, a psychology professor at the University
of Rochester. "Less good and even harmful is praise that feels to
the child evaluative and controlling. If a parent says, `I love the
way your room is so clean right now,' it has this feeling like
`you're controlling me.' "

 In addition to anecdotal experience, a smattering of studies
suggest that children praised for doing well at something were less
interested in pursuing it, or did less well at subsequent tasks.
One study found that when science teachers gave less praise,
children spent more time figuring out experiments on their own. Dr.
Joan Grusec, a University of Toronto psychology professor, found
that children praised for making charitable donations were less
likely to be generous than children told that they seemed to like
helping others, a descriptive response.

 The shift toward less praise is related to the booming economy and
tragedies like the Columbine massacre, said Sally Lee, editor in
chief of Parents Magazine, which recently published an article on
praise.

 "In the last two or three years, there's a sense of let's start
raising kids who are not so individualistic," Ms. Lee said. "In a
bad economy, everyone wants to raise this Horatio Alger. Now we
want to raise kids who are good citizens who will help people."

 Ms. Lee said her own tendency to praise her daughter, 3, had
become almost "a nervous tic: saying `good job' when she went down
the slide, when she picked herself up from the playground. So when
I said `good job' when she did something big like set the table by
herself for the first time, I guess there wasn't much difference." 

 Alfie Kohn, an author and a strong critic of routine praise,
calls it a "verbal doggie biscuit," similar to tangible rewards,
like stickers or gold stars, which he considers disrespectful,
manipulative and only temporarily effective. 

 Some psychologists and teachers disagree.

 Dr. Barry Lubetkin,
director of the Institute for Behavior Therapy in Manhattan,
believes that while some parents overpraise, "most parents don't
praise enough. Praise is extremely important in building up a sense
of children's own abilities. For psychologists to suggest that you
should limit praise really undermines the idea of how we encourage
children to feel good about themselves."

 Kim Hunt, a second-grade teacher in Des Moines, often praises
children to convince others to behave, saying things like, "Oh, do
I like the way Emily has already started solving those math
problems. She's using her brain," Ms. Hunt said.

 "Praise is almost a contagious virus in a classroom because if you
can catch one child doing something good and if you can verbally
praise that child in front of his or her peers, it's going to
spread like wildfire and the rest of the children are going to
automatically do exactly what that model student is doing because
they want the positive attention," she said. 

 But proponents say substituting questions or descriptions for
praise stimulates children to think, create and feel good about
their own work.

 "This recurring, high-octane level of praise sometimes gets in the
way" of learning, said Teresa Rosegrant, a preschool teacher in
Arlington, Va. Saying something like "I see you're figuring out how
to turn the pieces to put that puzzle together," she said,
encourages and motivates a child, while "allowing them to feel
happy about their own accomplishments."

 At Monroe Elementary School in this community about 30 miles
southeast of Des Moines, some parents are impressed by Mrs.
Doolittle's approach. 

 Renae Tool routinely praised her son Jacob because "you want to
tell them they did a good job on everything," she said. But when he
started preschool two years ago, she noticed he "would hurry
through art projects. As soon as a buddy of his was done, he would
just sort of scribble through or just paste it down." 

 What helped was that instead of praise, Mrs. Doolittle would say,
"Jacob, is that your best work?" Mrs. Tool said.

 "I really think after Jacob came here he had more
self-confidence," said Mrs. Tool, who was so impressed she enrolled
her daughter, Dani Sue, 5, and became a classroom aide.

 Mrs. Tool is also glad Mrs. Doolittle rejects the school's
practice of giving children yellow slips for good behavior and blue
for bad, and was uncomfortable this year when Jacob's first grade
teacher gave him a yellow slip praising him for playing with a
disabled boy.

 Some parents, however, have not been pleased.

 Last year, Mrs. Doolittle said, a mother said her son's behavior
problems were caused by Mrs. Doolittle's not praising him enough.
He ultimately left the class.

 And, Mrs. Doolittle said: "If we've had a really good day, I still
resort to, probably more for the parents than the children, giving
them a `we had a good day' badge. If you never bring home any
positive things, the parents start to wonder." 
       


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