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Not in Praise of Praise
November 18, 2004
Not in Praise of Praise
The article by Kathleen Grey, "Not in Praise of Praise," from the July, 1995 issue of Exchange, has been used as the basis for an Out of the Box Training Kit. You can download a free copy of this kit at: http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0453
In the article, Grey observes...
"There are two themes that link both the old way and the new way of building character and teaching good behavior. The first theme is the idea that how children think about themselves and evaluate themselves is dependent upon what adults tell them about themselves and has little to do with their own evaluation of themselves. This point of view supposes that adult evaluations are more right than a child's, and that adults have the responsibility to mold the way children perceive themselves by stating their evaluations frequently.
"The second connecting theme is the constant emphasis on the concepts of goodness, badness, and obedience. There is good or bad behavior, good or bad self-concept, good or bad feelings, good or bad thoughts. There is an undercurrent of belief that goodness and badness are definable by adults, simply by virtue of being an adult, and have nothing to do with children's age, developmental level, psychological needs, or internal motivation. Adults are responsible for telling children what is good and what is bad and for using whatever consequences are necessary to see that children comply with this message. Children's obedient behavior, then, is seen as a measure of whether the adults have done a good job or bad job of defining and talking about goodness and badness.
"Current thought ... recognizes that praise is an important and powerful form of communication. It can nourish the spirit and add a sheen to daily experiences. It is a potent payoff for effort. But .. . . it is a judgment, nonetheless. Because children value the opinion of adults so highly, frequent evaluative comments, even when positive, can foster undue dependence on the external judgment of others, causing them to devalue their own perceptions about their competence and capabilities. Used indiscriminately, praise loses its potency and becomes empty and meaningless."
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