To praise or not to praise - that is the question!
One day at HEY, the children were jumping off a high plank onto a mattress. Kate was supervising and would often praise the children with “good job!” and “well done!” There is definitely a place for praise in children's lives, but we should praise their effort not their achievement, because after a while “good job” starts to mean nothing to the child. If we praise children too much, they will start only doing things in expectation of praise, rather than for their own satisfaction. A good trick for praising effort is to describe that effort to the child.
For example, Kate came up with a good one in “great, you stuck that landing!” Kate also remembered that you can say to a child “I can show you and then you can try it” (this was from her experience teaching the children basketball). She also came up with “you need to keep trying and you can ask me to help”.
These are some of the ways Kate can praise effort instead of the child and encourage the children:
I love how you…..
Wow! You went further away this time.
Do you remember when…now you can….
Why don’t you give it a try OR Keep trying
Maybe you could try to land on your feet this time.
Task: Olivia draws a beautiful picture of some flowers and shows it to you proudly. What would you say to her? Try to think of something different to "that's amazing" or "well done". Write down your answer on your whiteboard.
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