Unconditional Parenting

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Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

Alternatives to evaluative praise

Excerpts on praise from Chapter 8 "Love without strings attached"

Note that, in these excerpts, I think it's helpful to replace "praise" with "evaluative praise." Perhaps the following example from a table on p. 157 can help to illustrate how some of the alternatives to evaluative praise that the author provides are instead descriptive and/or appreciative praise: Instead of saying “You’re such a great helper!” try explaining the effects of the child’s action on other people by saying “You set the table! Boy, that makes things a lot easier on me while I’m cooking.”


The happy news is that it’s not necessary to evaluate kids in order to encourage them. The popularity of praise rests partly on the failure to distinguish between those two ideas. Just paying attention to what kids are doing and showing interest in their activities is a form of encouragement. In fact, it’s more important than what we say immediately after kids do something marvelous. When unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are always present, “Good job!” isn’t necessary; when they’re absent, “Good job!” won’t help.

At first, it can feel weird to hold back when you’re used to offering these constant evaluations. (“Good drawing!” “Good drinking!” “Good drooling!”) It may seem as though you’re being unsupportive. But from observing many parents, including myself, I’ve become convinced that praise is less a function of what kids need to hear than of what we need to say. And whenever that’s true, it’s time for us to rethink what we’ve been doing.

On those occasions when we feel it would be appropriate to say something, we can simply point out what we’ve seen and allow the child to decide how to feel about it (rather than telling her how). A simple, evaluation-free statement lets a child know that you noticed. It also lets her take pride in what she did. …

… If a child does something caring or generous, you might gently draw his attention to the effect of his action on the other person. This is completely different from praise, where the emphasis is on how you feel about his sharing.

Finally, even better than descriptions are questions. Why tell him what you thought of what he did when you can ask him what he thinks? That’s likely to promote useful reflection about why it may be better to act one way than another. Questions you ask about something he wrote or drew or made, meanwhile, invite him to consider what he succeeded in doing and how he did it. This can spur further improvement and nourish his interest in the task itself. The research, remember, suggests that praise may have exactly the opposite effect, directing his attention away from the task and toward your reaction.

Recently, I found myself at a crafts activity sponsored by a local library in which children were invited to create snowflakes out of pipe cleaners and beads. A boy of about four or five sitting near me showed his mother what he had done, and immediately she gushed about how wonderful it was. Then, since I was the only other adult at the table, he held his snowflake out so I, too, could see it clearly. Instead of offering an evaluation, I asked him whether he liked it. “Not so much,” he admitted. I asked why, and he began to explain, his tone suggesting genuine interest in figuring out other possible ways he might have used the materials. This is exactly the sort of elaboration and reflection that are stifled when we slather our kids with praise. They tend to stop thinking and talking about what they’ve done as soon as we pass judgment on it.

...

My best advice here is to watch for the impact it has. If you’re in the habit of saying something to your children that could be construed as praise, see if they then look to you for—and seem to need—such comments on a regular basis. Try to figure out whether their intrinsic motivation (their commitment to an action or their interest in a given activity) seems to have lessened as a result of these kinds of statements from you.

In short, I’m not suggesting that we stop saying positive things to our children. But I am saying that we should look at the underlying significance of what we say, and how it’s heard, rather than just trying to use or avoid specific words. If children perceive that we’re simply joining with them to celebrate their accomplishments, that’s fine. But if they perceive that we’re imposing our evaluations on them, this can easily crowd out their own instincts about when and why to feel proud of themselves. Pretty soon they may come to define the value of what they do in terms of whether it elicits our approval—or, later, the approval of other people in authority.


The rest of the excerpts in this section are from earlier in the chapter, i.e., from before the excerpts above.

… give them affection (which they need) without limit, without reservations, and without excuse. Pay as much attention to them as you can, regardless of mood or circumstance. Let them know you’re delighted to be with them, that you care about them no matter what happens. [The author notes that this basic posture is completely different from praise that involves deliberately saying something to produce a desired effect (rather than responding authentically and spontaneously to what a child has done).]

...

... to communicate in many different ways that our basic acceptance of them is a given, a rock-solid core beneath whatever we happen to be feeling, and they happen to be doing, today.

... I’m not saying you can’t be proud of a particular accomplishment. ... You can take special delight when your child does something remarkable, but, again, not in a way that suggests your love hinges on such events. If you strike that balance correctly, children are less likely to grow up feeling they’re worthwhile only when they succeed. They’ll be able to fail without concluding that they themselves are failures.