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.
This article comes close to touching on something I’ve heard a lot, which is that praise should be based on effort rather than on outcome. Don’t say “good job”, say “wow, you must have spent a lot of time on that” or similar. I have no idea or even opinion about which is actually better, or if there even is one that’s categorically better. But I did find this article a little shallow for how it got close to that point without actually exploring it.
eeeh a lot of these articles read like the professional in question had parents who used A Specific Tone when saying certain phrases that wildly distorted the meaning and fucked up their self esteem.
Which like, yeah, it happens, but doesn’t mean it’s universal. And you’re doing more damage by dancing around the phrasing when what you should be doing is digging into tone and intent.
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.
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.
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…’
I’m definitely not fully there with this article’s advice. I do agree with the idea of being observational, for example, “You put your shoes on by yourself!” so that a child knows what they’ve done that worked well. And I agree with your statement about showing your emotions to children. But I genuinely fail to see how telling kids they’ve done a “good job” is as harmful as they’re making it out to be. I’ve read many articles like it over the past 13 years. When I first became a parent I suddenly became aware of the massive abundance of “parenting experts” and the like, ever ready to weigh in on morning shows and flog a new book or subscription, who were making both a killing and a career on over analysing parenting, scrutinising and nitpicking every detail of parental performance. If I sound a little sensitive on the topic it’s because I really drove myself crazy for those first few years, especially as a first time parent with only self interested family members to advise me, reading every analysis and article I could find in order to do the right thing by my child. I often have told my kids they do a “good job,” and the end result is that they are aware I think they’ve done a good job. Period. It doesn’t create “praise junkies” in the slightest. My daughter especially is a very strong willed, strong minded little girl, but neither of my kids are inclined to give up on an idea just because I think it might not be great. If they are hesitant in answering a question it is because they are uncertain of the actual answer, not uncertain of whether they will receive my praise. If the author’s purpose is to encourage parents in creating children who are strong minded, independent and creative thinkers, more critique of the education systems we employ might be a better use of their time than yet another critique of already beleaguered parents, who are themselves mostly just trying their best to do a “good job.”
Edit to say I didn’t down vote you… would’ve rather that person contributed to the discussion
The downvoter may just be a random from another instance who saw the headline and reacted for no other reason.
The irony, with this particular community
