I don’t know if i’m fully there with this advice. Some of it sounds like the writer wants you to be more monotone than you feel. To control the way you express your reactions.
Expressing your own emotional reactions to/in front of a child is surely important in their development.
That said, the writer’s key point about accidentally switching a child’s motivations for learning things through the parent’s actions is well put.
I guess I’m too literal or a stickler for semantics, but it always grated on my nerves that I kept hearing parents and coaches parroting “Good job!” at their kids sports games.
It’s not a job. It’s meant to be a fun pasttime.
“Good job” is not the only way to express what you want to say.
“Well done!”, “Ripper!”, “Fully sick, cuzzy brah!”
But there was also an insidious way it was used. When a kid lost or got out, there were some parents that would yell it out as if to say “Nice try, loser!”
Toxic sports parents are the worst.
Eh, I don’t agree that there’s something wrong with saying “good job” because of the word job. In this context, job simply doesn’t mean “occupation”, it means any kind of activity.
But more importantly, I think the article makes it clear that they are talking about any kind of outcome-based praise. Good job is in the headline, but “Good clapping!”, “I like the way you….”, and “Good ______ing" also get mentions. So I think “Well done!” and “Ripper!” would also qualify as things that should be avoided, according to this article’s author.
Yeah, I was getting a lot of management course ‘you need to offer specific positive reinforcement’ vibes…
‘Good job! And I particularly like how you released your hips to get extra power!’
Or ‘When you…I feel…because…’