Well done or over praised?

 I have wondered about this for a long time so the article in this morning's paper saying that perhaps it is not a good idea to constantly praise children was of more than usual interest to me.

It seems to me that children are naturally competitive. It also seems to me there is very little point in trying to hide the fact some children are better than others at doing some things, perhaps even most things.

As a kitten in the early years of school we had "Friday tests". They were based on what we had done and supposedly managed to learn during the week. We had "mental", "arithmetic", "spelling", "composition" and a sort of general knowledge test. Our handwriting skills were also marked. I could get ten out of ten for mental and spelling, twenty for arithmetic and seventeen or eighteen for composition (nobody ever got twenty) ...and then come down with a bump with zero or two or three for handwriting. It never seemed fair to me when I had tried my hardest. I still went on trying for everything else though because, even with such low marks for writing I was somewhere at the top of the class.  I didn't dare be anywhere else. It was what was expected of me. I was expected to work at everything and I was expected to do well. Getting "full marks" for mental, spelling and arithmetic was expected of those of us who were thought able to do it. Getting high marks everything else was also expected of us. 

We all knew who had done well and who had not done well. I don't remember the teachers actually telling us that "Jo" had "come top". Even at the end of the first and second terms when reports went home to our parents nothing much was said apart from perhaps a "well done" or "your parents will be pleased". At the end of the year we all knew of course because there would be "speech day" and the prize giving ceremony - prizes for the children who had come "top" and "first". It was always an aggregate of the marks though so I never managed to get a first prize or even a second. Handwriting always let me down.

"It's all right," the others would tell me, "We think you should have got first."  Even the boy clutching his cheap version of a "classic" novel told me this. Other children can be just as kind as they are cruel. We didn't need the constant praise of a teacher.

Now it seems to be different. I notice even the parents in this street seem to constantly praise their children. The most intelligent of the children have been known to give their parents what I call "the look" when praised for something that is what should simply be expected of them.

There are times to praise and not to praise. I remember saying "that's really good" to a child who had similar problems to my own. She looked at me in disgust and said, "No. It isn't." I didn't tell her it was rude because I knew how she was judging herself and that it was against every "normal" child. Instead I said, "Yes, it is really well done for you. You put a lot of effort in and did the best you could do and that's what I meant. Okay now?" She gave me a smile and went back to work. 

It taught me something though. Constant praise is meaningless. Don't just throw it away.