I’m always interested in the psychology of awarding praise.
Too much, and it can create a bloated ego. Too little, and you risk damaging someone’s self-esteem.
Parents, especially, have a fine line to walk with such tender egos at stake. It’s a hard-knock life out there, you say, so at least at home let children think they walk on water.
Psychologists say that isn’t healthy because then children won’t be able to tell when they genuinely achieve a milestone if everything they do is “great.”
It’s my contention that children can detect false praise a mile away, anyway.
Even they seem to intuitively know that they feel better when their successes are earned.
THIS IS MY backhanded way of congratulating the Register crew for recently winning the 2020 Awards of Excellence in the Kansas Press Association’s annual competition.
Fellow journalists from Arkansas judged our entries for newswriting, photography and advertising over the course of 2019.
Typically, we gather what I feel is a good share of the hardware. The Sweepstakes, however, always seems to be just beyond our reach.
Which, I suppose, has made us try harder. Last year we succeeded, for the first time since 2008. To repeat that success two years in a row is a first in the Register’s history.
“Dad, are you listening?”
THE BEST kind of praise is specific, psychologists say. Telling a child he’s “so smart” can lead to a sense of defeat if he fails at something.
It’s better to cite specific abilities. “You did great on reading that story,” goes a long way in building the child’s confidence as a reader.
The same goes for the workplace.
So I’m particularly thankful to have a stack of first-place plaques that prove to my staff that in fact, they walk on water.
