Thursday Nov 10, 2022

006 Is Your Child a Praise Junkie?

Show notes week 6 is your child a Praise Junkie? 

 

Definition of "Praise Junkie"

One of the downsides of positive parenting 

Cultural backdrop of overpraising children: 

BF skinner research in positive reinforcement in 1920s

Definitions of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, Punishment

Permissive parenting in the 1960s as a pendulum shift

Motivating with positive reinforcement schedules rather than negative reinforcement or punishment. 

Self esteem movement— can be taken too far and create narcissistic traits. 

Self-confidence comes from competence and skills especially for boys. Empty Praise without achievement causes child to doubt their parent because the child understands the truth. 

Filling Mother’s needs for validation (generally the Mom!) 

Trophies for everyone on the team

 

Problems: 

Praise loses its effectiveness over time and must be increased to get initial effect

Kids can become dependent

Older kids can become dismissive of a parental praise

Children experience the world as strangely harsh and non-supportive compared to parents’ constant fix of praise

But human brains are much more easily motivated by fear than reward, so if we only use positive reinforcement we have an unnecessarily big job.

Human brains perceive pain and pleasure in relative terms—- so without a counterbalance to pleasure, a brain has difficulty sensing pleasure. 

Overpraising also orients the child to external validation rather than internal validation. It leaves them vulnerable to the opinions of others (either good or bad) 

Charlotte Mason quote about internal validation

 

Solutions

Praise less effusively and less often. Make your praise a more valued commodity 

Model self-validation

Give the child permission : “I would be proud of myself! Are you proud of yourself?”

Give them the words for self validation, “I’ll bet you feel very accomplished, very proud of yourself— eh?”

Ask for introspection : “How does it feel to have accomplished that ? Kinda awesome?”

After an accomplishment ask: “What do you think? “ If they hesitate a great deal, say “If I were you I’d be amazed at myself!” Or another adverb: proud, happy, hopeful, satisfied, ecstatic, pleased.” Be curious.

When kids say I don’t know

Use understated body language: a smile, a wink, Pat on the shoulder, thumbs up, nod of the head. Save the touchdown celebration for something miraculous 

Research shows many high achieving families (Tiger Mothers) use a great deal of shame associated with disappointing parents. Instead we should let our attachment relationship provide the motivation not to disappoint. 

Research also shows a great way that some cultures motivate children is two fold: 1.Tell the child they are gifted in some way.

2. Because of that gift, they must not waste their talent. And that they can always do a little better. 

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