Asking the Internet Gods for Advice.

On our own for the evening, Sprite and I set up camp in her room to play a little before bedtime.

She quickly found a Melissa and Doug wooden puzzle set and started to match the loose pieces to the board. The cow went into its alloted slot. The pig followed. So did the sheep. Then, Sprite picked up the final piece, a horse, and placed it into its spot.

"Good job", she said, then turned the puzzle on its end to dump the pieces and start over.

The pieces were correctly placed a little more quickly. "Yay!", she exclaimed, clapping her hands and then starting over yet again.

I sat back, watching her, as she congratulated herself every time she finished a puzzle.

If she hadn't given herself accolades, I would have. It's become a habit. But has it become a bad one?

Everytime she does something correctly, we automatically respond with a "Yay!" or "Good job!" or "Huzzah!". Well, maybe not "Huzzah", but I may decide to sneak this into her repetoire anyway, even if only to screw with her teachers at daycare a little. (Tit for tat, right? They lose diapers. I teach Sprite strange words to confuse them. In my mind, it works out.)

Has it come to this? Have we become the type of family I had trained myself to hate? (Obviously before I had a kid, otherwise I would hate ME and I clearly love ME too much to do that.)

When does it stop? When do we stop praising her for using her fork correctly? When do we stop complimenting her for every little toy she helps to put away?

When does "Yay!" stop becoming a regular tack-on to singing the ABC's? Or counting for that matter? Or getting through "The Wheels on the Bus" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider"? ( "Yay!" is a frequently used expression in our house, can you tell?)

When does good behavior or applied knowledge start becoming an expectation and stop being an opportunity for praise?

I have no answer for this. (I hate when that happens..)

Do you?

No, not you.

Yes, you.

I am turning to you, Internet. Clearly you have more up your sleeves than just pop-up ads and daily prizes I've won.

When should I stop praising my child for everything she does and start treating her like an actual human being who doesn't get a cookie just because she hasn't slammed her plate down to the floor to show she was finished? (I keep telling her, "I'm done" is just as effective, although the dogs clearly prefer her method.)

Show me the way!

Comments

[Becca]

My answer is NEVER stop praising her. But as she grows, so will the feats that she does. You will just always be praising her but in different ways. Remember that you praised crawling which led to praising the first steps which led to walking. Now you don't praise her for the crawling but you praise her when she runs or jumps!

[Lisa]

Why do you have to stop praising her? Praising her is a good thing and it is simply re-enforcement for the good things she is doing. I don't think that is wrong at all. I think we as adults might need a little more praising at times. But maybe I am reading this wrong.