I hope you had a chance to view the video above. I have been noticing that the videos I have been attaching haven't been showing up. I am new to this and once I get the hang of it, I promise it will be much better! Bear with me!
PRAISE: The definition of praise is to express warm approval or admiration of. An example of praising would be, "Good job Serenity! That picture is beautiful!"
ENCOURAGEMENT: The definition of encouragement is the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope. An example of encouragement would be, "I see your picture Serenity! What did you make?"
Do you see the difference between the two? When I first began teaching at Head Start, I could not understand why we were not allowed to praise children. I mean, every child should be praised right?
Boy did I learn that was wrong and I learned the hard way. I would praise children every chance I got because I though I was encouraging. The children that I would praise because reliant on me praising them. I created PRAISE JUNKIES! They would only do things to gain my attention and not only that, the children who couldn't do it didn't receive my praise and how do you think they felt? Pretty bad, I tell you! Not that they ever told me but come on, we adults can only imagine how they felt. Praising helps no one and when a child depends on someone to recognize them through praising for EVERYTHING they do, guess what they turn into... attention seeking, praise reliant, can't do anything without someone noticing or telling them "Good job" adults. Those are the one's who someone has to tell them, "Good Job" or pat their backs and if they don't get that, they don't feel valued. Is that how you want your child to grow up? I don't think so.
Praising is a way we as adults use to manipulate children. "Oh, good job Londyn. You wrote your name so good! Oh Dadrian, that's not your name. Londyn wrote all the letters in her name" While Londyn is happy that you noticed her, Dadrian is not and you have just made him feel bad about his work. Maybe Dadrian is not on the same level developmentally as Londyn and he is doing the best he knows how. Can you see how that is belittling to a child? You are making one child feel good about themselves while shaming another one. How could we encourage Dadrian to write his name? While we know he is scribbling, we need to meet him at his level so if he is making letter-like forms, acknowledge that. "Oh Dadrian, I see that you are writing. What letters did you make?" He will then tell you what letters he wrote. As he tell you the letters that he has written, write them down for him so that he can see the correct way to write them. He will then refer to your writing to try to write it in the correct form. Eventually, he will get it. Bottom line: praising increases pressure and that is not something we want our children to experience.
We want to always encourage our children in everything that they do. There are many alternatives to praising and the one I use frequently is to simply say what I see. If a child says, "Ms. Williams, look I wrote my name." I simply say, "I see that you wrote your name. What letter is this?" I have just acknowledged the child's work and I am not having a teachable moment. Let's create more thinkers, challengers, and strong decision-makers and less praise junkies and people pleasers!
Name Credits:
*Shout out to Dadrian, Londyn, and Serenity!
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