“You’re such agood boy!” “Here’s agold star for you.” “What fantasticjob!”
Achild won’t hear any of these in aMontessori classroom. Should they hearpraise like this at home?
This is the second in our series on communication, Speaking the Child’s Language.
The Montessori system eschews reward and punishment in itsmethod of education. The concept behind is simple: achild ought to learn, andis uniquely equipped to learn, at the exact pace and in the exact way that isdevelopmentally and individually appropriate to her. Such study brings deepinner satisfaction to the child and aids her in the construction of her very self;she needs no other motivation. The adult’s role is to set up alearningenvironment and enable the child to work in it, not to insert ourselves in theprocess and try to direct it through our intervention, whether negative (punishment)or positive (reward, and praise as aparticular type of reward).
It works. For over acentury now, it has worked, helpingchildren grow up into confident, self-directed and self-motivated adults. Andit need not be limited to the Montessori classroom.
Praise is often touted and recommended as avaluable parenting tool. Instead of punishing bad behaviour and fracturing our relationship with the child through negative discipline, we are told, we can just lavish praise on the behaviours we want to see; eager to be praised, the child will continue to doas we like. However, psychological and behavioural research confirms what we already knew: this is ashortsighted, and ultimately harmful way to influence the child’s behaviour.
Explore the fundamentals of Montessori parenting with this free video by Sylvia Arotin, offering insights and strategies to empower and educate your child.
The Problem with Praise
In its essence, when we are praised it means we look tosomeone else to assess and judge our actions. If we dosomething only for thepraise or other reward it will elicit, we are giving up our own motivations andjudgements. We are handing control over ourselves to someone else, someone in aposition of power over us.
That may sound alright when we’re talking about atoddler under the control of aloving parent. However, childhood is atime to learn how to function as ahuman being, atime to create behavioural structures and strategies that will serve us throughout our lifetimes. We know how important it is that children today develop critical thinking, discipline, astrong sense of self-worth and inner motivation. Praise-motivated behaviour teaches us none of that, and instead sets afoundation of unhealthy reliance, potentially leaving children vulnerable to manipulation and abuse.
Think of it this way: doyou want your child to always look for you to find whether something is right or wrong, or to be able to tell the difference by herself?
However, children naturally want to gain their parents’ and loved ones’ approval. They want to please us and constantly look to us for cues on how to act. Instead of offering praise, let’s take advantage of this natural drive to promote healthy and positive development.
The Difference Between Praise and Encouragement
Instead of praise, Montessori guides are taught to offeracknowledgement, encouragement, and guide the child towards assessing his ownactions through thoughtful questions. There’s no reason for parents not to usethis same tool. In the long run, such statements and conversations become muchmore valuable – and meaningful – to the child than any lavish praise; unlikepraise, they donot get tired of them. Praise does feel good in the moment, butultimately it is nothing to the great pleasure of being seen andacknowledged, with care but without judgement.
Study after study agrees that this approach not only feelsbetter and promotes better relationship, but directly contributes to developmentof crucial executive skills. So how doyou make the switch?
- Speak about actions and behaviours, not the
child himself. Praise like “You’re such agood boy for mama” focuses on his
worth as aperson, but gives him no useful information, and may even cause the
more anxiety-prone child worry about living up to it in the future. Try “Thank
you for putting away the laundry, that was really helpful” instead. - Focus on the effort that the child exerted. “Your
science project was fantastic!” is much less valuable than “I know you worked
really hard on this project, and it’s obvious that you put alot of time into
these details”. - Describe why you appreciate the child’s actions.
“It was much easier for me to cook dinner because you washed all the dirty
dishes. Iliked that.” - Ask questions. “I see that you spent along time
building this Lego structure. What doyou like about it?” Likewise, if achild
asks your opinion, try and turn it back to them: “I know you worked very hard
on this assignment. How doyou feel about it?”
Just like with discipline, you can also focus on the natural consequence of your child’s behaviour and actions. “Since you were so quick to clean up, we have time for an extra game or story before bed”.
To stop praising your child might be atough habit to break;it may have been ingrained in you and your family for generations. However, tryto employ these tactics to shift the focus away from your judgements andopinions, and see if it changes the interactions with your child. Bit by bit,these and similar statements can become just as easy and natural to you as “goodjob” may be now.
When to Step Away Completely
There are some instances where achild needs noencouragement, and it is best just to step away and not offer anything.
Among them is any kind of artistic expression. These kind of activities – movement play, painting, singing and dancing – can and absolutely should be enjoyed together as afamily at times, but also by the child herself whenever she wants; she should have space to explore and experiment freely, without intervention. As we wrote before, assigning value to the product of the child’s self-expression, such as her drawings, interferes harmfully with the activity itself. If asmall child brings us apicture to show, instead of proclaiming it good or pretty we can simply say, “I see you made apicture! It is very red,” or simar such casual comment. You may be surprised by how easily this will satisfy them and return them back to their work.
Similarly, eating and elimination requires little adult comment. Unfortunately, it is very common to praise small children lavishly for both eating and defecating – two things that are quite natural and the child would dowithout any encouragement. We wrote more on toilet training previously and will address eating in afuture article, but suffice to say: children should eat when they’re hungry, and eliminate when similarly they feel the need, not when they wish to please the parent. Interfering with the body’s natural functioning through praise, rewards (or even worse, through punishment and reprisals) is quite harmful and may contribute to poor eating habits or gastric distress in the future.
