“Good girl! You are a hard worker”, the teacher says as she smiles at your daughter. You have an uneasy feeling and you aren’t sure why. Don’t you want the teacher to praise your child? Surprisingly, your  uneasiness is a good indicator that praise isn’t really what we are after.

The problem with praise is that it can set off all kinds of internal problems. Praise assumes that what I do says something about who I am . As adults raised in this culture, not many of us have experienced a life where praise and other external types of reward aren’t sought after. I grew up believing that winning the award, receiving the reward, or being praised were the things to work for.

It wasn’t until I began studying parenting that I learned that my children would be far better off if I could teach them to find their validation on the inside, rather than from external sources.

The fancy description of this is “internal locus of control” vs. “external locus of control” When we teach children to find their sense of worth from the feelings they have about themselves, about what they do and about the efforts they have made, we empower them to  live the life that is authentic to them. Kids who grow up caring more about what they think,than what we think, grow up to be empowered and successful. They may not please us as much as we would like, but they learn to please themselves and that’s a good thing, really!

Here are some of the problems that come from praise. See if you recognize any of these experiences:

Praise can make you doubt the praiser. Your friend tells you how creative or smart or attractive you are and you think “she doesn’t know what she is talking about” or “she is lying.”

Praise can lead to immediate denial. We have learned not to be boastful or self impressed. So we don’t allow the praise in, but deflect it immediately.

Praise can be threatening. When we learn to work for praise or to measure our worth by it, we can become frightened about failing. “I have to make sure I am always this good.”

Praise can create anxiety and interfere with activity. When the desire for praise is so great that we think we can’t live without it, our performance becomes a focus. “I’ll never be able to do that again.”

Praise can be experienced as manipulation. We can mistrust those who praise us, doubting their sincerity and second guessing their intentions. “What does this person want from me?”

So, if praise isn’t actually good for kids, what is?

Here are a few ways to show appreciation for a child’s behavior or efforts.

• Instead of evaluating, describe. This can be as easy as describing what you see.
• Or describe how you feel about what you are experiencing.
• Try summing up the behavior with a descriptive word. After describing, ask the child how they feel about the situation.

Try some of these ways of interacting with kids about their art work, homework, clean-up, or other skills that they are practicing. I think you will immediately notice that kids love telling you how they feel about their efforts. You will see that conversations can lead to knowing so much more about your child’s internal experience. Kids who are asked to describe their own internal process will also be able to feel great about themselves, whether we are there to comment or not!