Every parent generally wants their child to be happy, wants their child to achieve great academic success and generally wants their children to have a good life thereby doing everything possible to support and encourage their child. One of the ways they tend to achieve this is through praise. Praising our kids is a beautiful thing however, most of the times, the way we talk to them especially the way we praise them, may have a huge impact on their intrinsic motivation for learning, and even in the way they’ll handle challenges that are unavoidable in life and also in their general behaviors.
The truth is often times parents believe that when they say things like “good job, well-done, that’s great, you’re doing well, excellent, beautiful, you’re the best, you’re so smart all the times.” that they are actually encouraging and supporting them to do more but more often than not is not necessarily true because when you overly praise your child, this becomes an expectations and may even become a huge burden they have to live up to which can be so overwhelming for a child. This is how they’ll think ‘’ my mum and my dad expect me to be the best and I don’t think I can live up to that which on its own can be challenging for them.
When you praise your child for everything they do, they’ll get used to it and this gives them the feeling that it is not about them anymore or what they think, feel or even the belief they have about themselves rather, it will be about what you or other people think of them. This can lead most children to becoming people-pleaser instead of them pleasing themselves, Meaning people’s opinion may determine their true happiness or sadness and most of the time, people’s opinions aren’t favorable.
That means as a child, you’ll constantly need people’s approval which may affect you from doing what you truly love to do or even satisfying yourself generally.
Again sometimes we praise children over every little achievement and we do this with too much excitement which can even make a child doubt the authenticity of the praise. This means that if our children get so used to parent’s over- praise, it becomes meaningless to them that even when you genuinely praise , they don’t appreciate it anymore because it is something they’re used to hearing every now and again.
Also, when parents constantly tell a child ‘’ you’re smart, good job, you’re the best and they see themselves as less smart, less good, what do you think will happen to the child? It will make the child feel that he’s not measuring up to mummy, daddy or any adult in his life expectations then, instead of boosting the child’s self-esteem, it reduces.
The truth is children react differently to these pressures out there for some children, they’ll have the mindset of I can’t be bothered because even if I try, I will end up frustrated and then choose not to try again or try at all while for some other children, they’ll do everything possible to prove themselves this again can lead to them to doing everything in their power to please and satisfy others even when is not suitable for them thereby leading to sadness and frustration.
