I read a fascinating book by Alfie Kohn last week, which included an essay titled, Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!” and it definitely made me think critically about how and why we praise kids. I’ll include a brief paragraph and then just the bullet point reasons (with some supporting text), but it would be good for you to read the whole article (it’s not very long).
Lest there be any misunderstanding, the point here is not to call into question the importance of supporting and encouraging children, the need to love them and hug them and help them feel good about themselves. Praise, however, is a different story entirely. Here’s why.
- Manipulating children. Suppose you offer a verbal reward to reinforce the behavior of a two-year-old who eats without spilling, or a five-year-old who cleans up her art supplies. Who benefits from this? Is it possible that telling kids they’ve done a good job may have less to do with their emotional needs than with our convenience?
- Creating praise junkies. Rather than bolstering a child’s self-esteem, praise may increase kids’ dependence on us. The more we say, “I like the way you….” or “Good ______ing,” the more kids come to rely on our evaluations, our decisions about what’s good and bad, rather than learning to form their own judgments. It leads them to measure their worth in terms of what will lead us to smile and dole out some more approval.
- Stealing a child’s pleasure. Apart from the issue of dependence, a child deserves to take delight in her accomplishments, to feel pride in what she’s learned how to do. She also deserves to decide when to feel that way. Every time we say, “Good job!”, though, we’re telling a child how to feel.
- Losing interest. “Good painting!” may get children to keep painting for as long as we keep watching and praising. But, warns Lilian Katz, one of the country’s leading authorities on early childhood education, “once attention is withdrawn, many kids won’t touch the activity again.” Indeed, an impressive body of scientific research has shown that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.
- Reducing achievement. As if it weren’t bad enough that “Good job!” can undermine independence, pleasure, and interest, it can also interfere with how good a job children actually do. Researchers keep finding that kids who are praised for doing well at a creative task tend to stumble at the next task – and they don’t do as well as children who weren’t praised to begin with.
You can read the complete article here.
I find myself agreeing with the majority of his points, though I think he might be taking it to an extreme (my opinion is still definitely out on this one). What are your thoughts?
Of course a parent can go overboard with praise, or mess up with regard to when or how to praise. The same parent can go awry with worrying themselves to death over it as well. Put another way, one could get a repetitive stress injury with all the hand-wringing if you don’t watch it.
I know that for my part I absolutely avoid (and have been known to correct grandparents for) saying that my son was a “good boy” for a day of good behaviour, for example. My reasoning is that (although I know he is a little sinner like me) I want him to know that for me he is always a good boy and has my love and favor, whether he has just done a great job or not on a particular day or task. So, he may do a good job or not, but he is always a good boy.
I don’t completely get whether this writer thinks all praise, as opposed to what he separates out as “support”, is to be avoided. If so, then I think that is silly advice if taken to the extreme. If my kid is working on, say, tying his laces, then what am I supposed to do, not tell him when he is on the right or wrong track, and then not celebrate with him when he conquers the task?
Maybe it is different, for creative tasks. Good or bad has more to do with the effort at those things than the end result, since saying whether the resulting painting, for example, is good or bad depends on taste.
Gimme a break about not praising for eating without spilling or for cleaning up after one’s self. Again, there are right ways and wrong ways to praise for such things, but that does not mean it should be avoided.
I often say good job to students or children that I am working with. I think it is easier than saying something more constructive. I think it is important to affirm a person’s work, especially if it is the best they have to offer at that moment. Something more on the lines of, that is a good story – would you like to know how you can make it better? Or you’ve done a really good job today of listening to instructions, I really appreciate that (I actually said this to a child we had problems with EVERYDAY in a summer program after he had made a great improvement that day).
Good Job Ariah! –
I’d agree to the point we can make kids praise junkies for:
praise WITHOUT purpose
praise on IDENTITY not ACTIVITY
praise for the PETTY
I did and do try to limit praising kids for “that cute ($100) outfit!”
it makes them learn early on their worth and identity is tied to the clothes they wear –
so – praise I think is OK – (don’t we want our kids to know there are appropriate behaviors? laudable achievements?) but we don’t’ want to abuse it to a place they feel their value and worth depend on someone’s approval…..
where do you find thie stuff?
Thanks for the thoughts everyone.
I think Kohn comes at it from the perspective that we are natural good and a sort of humanist perspective that says we should try not to have any influence in shaping ‘bad’ or ‘good’ for children. I wouldn’t go there with him, but I think his points above make sense.
The truth is kids don’t live in a vacuum, and we have to realize (teachers and parents) that we are one of a number of influence on a child presenting judgments (positive and negative), so we can’t stand aside and let them form ‘bad’ and ‘good’ on their own because other influences are already shaping them as well.
That’s sort of my random thought on it so far.