Are we hurting our children by praising them TOO much? How much is TOO much?
I grew up in a family where when I got a 95/100 in a test, my parents were pleased, but also asked where I had lost the 5 points. There was never excessive praise, and I had a sense of real achievement when I earned it . Today however, I see a paradigm shift in the way in which parents praise their children. A friend said the other day, that this is a "Good job Sara", "Attaboy Joey" generation- the smallest acts (not necessarily achievements) are praised...
Why do parents praise their children?
Many parents believe that building self-esteem should be the cornerstone of education. If children build up self-esteem and start believing in themselves, achievement will naturally follow. But confidence doesn’t always produce better students. In 2007 there was a study in which eighth graders in Korea and the United States were asked whether they were good at math. Among the American students, 39 percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of the Korean eighth graders. But the reality was somewhat different. The Korean kids scored far better in math than the over-confident American students. “Self-esteem is based on real accomplishments,” says Robert Brooks, faculty psychologist at Harvard Medical School. “It’s all about letting kids shine in a realistic way.”
The downside of too much praise is that kids may start to focus on the reward rather than what they are learning. Worse, failure can be devastating and confusing for a student whose confidence is based on an inflated ego, rather than actual abilities and achievements.
Good points....even my parents were not completely satisfied with anything less than 100 ....and I always had to clarify where I went wrong...this initiative from my parents' end always made me fetch more than 95% marks in my science papers and strangely I was never overconfident ...I truly believe in our parents process of upbringing a child.
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