… at least do it right.

I am doing an online course with BYU Idaho called Parenting Skills. I am learning so much. One of the things I have learned and that I am struggling to apply, is the chapter we have had about praise.

What do you think about praise? We can’t praise each other enough? We should only praise if someone has really achieved something great? or We shouldn’t praise each other at all, it makes us too conceited?

I have always lived in the belief that you should praise your kids for all their accomplishments. I raised my own children with reward charts and told them what a great job they did. I learned that I should not spare my compliments because it would build my children’s self-confidence and they would believe in themselves.

In my Parenting Skills class, I have now been introduced to a new way of thinking about how we praise our children. I am actually learning that what  I thought was helping my children, might have been very damaging for them.

Professor Carol Dweck has done some amazing studies showing how our praise can affect our children negatively. Actually, it can be very destructive. Dweck has dedicated her life to studying children’s mindset and how we can help our children develop or even change to a healthy mindset; a mindset that actually makes you enjoy learning.  She says there are two mindsets. It is the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.  Someone with a fixed mindset believes that intelligence is given in a certain amount of intelligence, and cannot be altered. A person with a growth mindset believes that intelligence can be developed. Dweck claims that a fixed mindset can be changed to a growth mindset and that these mindsets are mainly transmitted from people around the child. She says:

“How are these mindsets transmitted? Have you ever told a child they were smart or talented to boost their confidence? That’s what the self-esteem gurus told us to do but they were wrong. In a dozen studies we’ve shown that praising intelligence or talent creates a fixed mindset, makes kids worried about taking on hard tasks, even if they learn from them, and sabotages resilience. What’s the alternative? Praising that process, effort, strategies, persistence–those growth mindset characteristics creates the hardy and resilient child.” (Dweck 2012)

According to Dweck, we should be praising the process, the effort, the strategies, and the persistence. Praising these characteristics are what “… creates a hardy and resilient child.”

Here is s Link to an inspiring TED talk that Dweck gave in 2014 about growth mindset:

TED Carol Dweck

In 2017 Joanna Pocock wrote an article in the JSTOR Daily asking if we are praising our children too much. She says:

“In more recent studies, another danger emerges: Approval itself can become the “extrinsic reward,” the end goal. A child who is praised often will begin to crave the satisfaction he or she gets from pleasing their parent, teacher, or caregiver. Instead of doing something for the pure joy of it, the child will begin to do it simply for the praise. This is not a healthy cycle, and it can turn children into approval addicts. Their worth comes from the recognition they get rather than an inner sense of achievement or fulfilment.” ( Joanna Pocock) https://daily.jstor.org/are-we-spoiling-our-kids-with-too-much-praise/

Let’s look closer at how we should and should not praise our children.

Evaluative praise

Evaluative praise is when you praise your child for the result of their work. Here are some examples of how we evaluate our children when praising them. This is the kind of praise we should avoid altogether because it gives our children a fixed mindset that stops them from learning and growing:

Instead of the word evaluative, we could also use the word judge. Because you are, in fact,  judging your child’s work.  When telling our children how wonderful it is that they did well on a test, we are passing judgment on their work. Even though it is positive judgment it might leave them always needing praise from others in order to feel that they are doing something good. If there is no good feedback, it means your work was bad. Instead, we should encourage growth mindsets through descriptive and appreciative praise.

Descriptive praise

With descriptive praise, you are noticing what your child is doing and you describe it. You do not evaluate what is being done, or put judgment to it, you are simply describing the behavior.

Appreciative Praise

We can also show our appreciation when praising our children. This way we are showing the child what results their behavior has on themselves and people around them. Here a few examples.

 

Summary

How we praise our children has a huge influence on them. Evaluative praise or judgmental praise is inefficient for a growth mindset. To encourage a growth mindset in our children, we need to describe what our child is doing, and we can make them aware of the effect this behavior has on themselves, yourself, and on others. This will instill in them a lot more self-confidence and a joy of learning than telling them that they are doing a good job ever will.

From Theory to Practice

This is the theory. The “in a perfect world” scenario. As I said in the beginning, I have found it difficult to apply this in my own home. I am realizing that I probably have a fixed mindset too and I am passing it on to my children. Is there any hope for me? Can I do something about it now that I am almost 40? Well, I am trying and working hard on it.

I really believe that there is truth in all of this, but I need some help here. Two of my children are REALLY good at playing the piano. They are! They both have a completely different way of playing. One is continually working on perfecting technique, the other puts all her soul into the music she plays. How can I tell them how beautiful I think they play, how amazing and talented they are without praising them in the wrong way? It just doesn’t come naturally to me. Please submit any suggestions in the comments below.

 

References:

Williams, B. (Reporter). (2012, September 24). True Grit, Can You Teach It to Children?. [Television series episode]. NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse?cuecard=113407

Pocock J. (2917, February 22). Are We Spoiling Our Kids with Too Much Praise? JSTOR    Daily. Retrieved from https://daily.jstor.org/are-we-spoiling-our-kids-with-too-much-praise/

 

Date your spouse? How does dating have anything to do with parenting? Apparently quite a lot.

In an article written by Arbinger Company, they look at how we can best teach and correct our children. If the basics are not in place, it will be impossible to teach and correct. You’ve all heard about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid, right? The Arbringer Company presents a hierarchy pyramid in their article, not the pyramid of needs but the pyramid of parenting needs. It looks like this:

It’s kind of tiny, but right at the top of the pyramid, there is a section called correction, meaning the correction of our children. It is so tiny for a reason because if we follow this pyramid, we will be spending very little time correcting our children. In fact, if the other things are not in place, correcting our children will not be of any help at all. If we need to correct our children’s behavior, we need to be effective teachers. If we want to teach our children, we need to have a good parent/child relationship. The key to a good parent/child relationship is to have a good relationship with your spouse. The relationship to your spouse is affected by “the way that you are”.

Now, I don’t want to talk about each one of these levels in depth. I will, however, encourage to read the article by the Arbinger Company: The parenting Pyramide where all of these levels are talked about in depth. But I do want to talk a bit about the relationship with your spouse.

Now, just because someone has written an article about something, doesn’t mean that it is true. I have a very good relationship with my mother, who raised me and my sisters mostly alone after my parents divorced. I have a very good relationship with my own children even though their father died when they were really small. I too raised them on my own for a long time. I know many single moms who have great relationships with their children. However, there is no doubt that there are more challenges when raising children on your own than when you are two.

In their book Marriage & Family, The Quest for intimacy, Laurer and Laurer point out several difficulties single parents are likely to endure in contrast to couples raising their children. Some of these difficulties are: less happiness, more stress, suffer more fatigue, and having a higher rate of poverty than any other social group (Laurer & Laurer p 31).

What I am trying to say is that I believe that a single parent family can also reach the top of this parenting pyramid, teaching and correcting their children in a good way. However, I believe that it is easier when both parents are involved. I am convinced spouses that have a great relationship make the best base for a happy family. I can only speak from my own experience, but I know that when I have a hard time with my husband, I get so consumed by the conflict that we are having that I can’t see a lot of the other things going on in my life. I don’t see my children like I normally do. I know when the opposite is the case, we have a great time together and understand each other well, I have a lot more energy and time to build my relationship with my children.

When I think back on my childhood, I think of a picture that I have of me sitting on my father’s arm, with his other arm around my mother. We were 6 siblings, so you can imagine that time alone with mom AND dad was not something that happened often, and even though this moment only lasted for a few seconds it meant the world to me. I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole world.

Sadly, a few years later, they got divorced, but I still remember this feeling of being surrounded by the two people that meant the most to me, and that they loved each other. I wish all children would experience this.

Our relationship with our spouse is worth fighting for, not only for our own happiness but for our children, and also because our relationship with them can be so much stronger. So let’s fight for our spouse, let’s go on dates again, like when we first met.

I love this video of Pastor Bryan Sparks where he talks ENTHUSIASTICALLY about how there is NO excuse for not dating. NO EXCUSE. Time, money, babysitters, there is no excuse and you should prioritize it. You can check out the video on this link:

The Key To Happy Marriages

Let us listen to this advice. I am talking as much to me as to anyone else reading this. Don’t delay, ask your spouse out today. You are doing your children a great favor.

 

References

The Arbinger Company (1998). Parenting Pyramid. Retrieved from      https://content.byui.edu/file/91e7c911-20c5-4b9f-b8fc-9e4b1b37b6fc/1/Parenting_Pyramid_article.pdf 

 

My first parenting tip is to choose what kind of parent style you want to have. Or maybe I should say: consider what kind of parent style you already have… when you have identified what kind you are, maybe you want to make some adjustments. I know I did. Let me present three parenting styles.

 

 

Authoritarian parenting style

Have you ever said anything like this to your kids? I have. I have been guilty of all of them. I’ve even been guilty of putting my finger in their face just like in the picture. This kind of parenting is what we define as an authoritarian parenting style. In their book Marriage & Family, The Quest for intimacy, Laurer and Laurer define authoritarian parenting style as an approach “… to exercise maximum control and to expect unquestioning obedience.” (Laurer and Laurer p 277)

An authoritarian parent feels their success as a parent is measured in how obedient the child is. The parent needs to be in control. If they lose this control, through disobedience, corporal punishment is often involved. (Laurer and Laurer p 277)

Permissive parenting style

The opposite side of authoritarian parenting is permissive parenting. These parents will accept anything a child says. They will say yes just to avoid a conflict or to avoid a tantrum. These are the parents who will give their screaming child an ice cream in the store just to keep them quiet. They accept that the child is in control and that the child is the one making the decisions. 

I have to admit, I can recognize myself in this parenting style too. I might not have accepted name calling or rudeness, but I have given in to more tv time, more game time and more sweets just to get some peace and quiet. When the children were younger (and even now when most of them are teenagers), I was sometimes so tired and fed up that I just gave in and let them have what they were asking for. I just didn’t feel strong enough to take up the fight.

Authoritative parenting style

In between these two extreme parenting styles, we find the authoritative parenting style. This style “put boundaries on acceptable behavior within a warm, accepting context.” (Laurer and Laurer p 277) Mutual respect, acceptance, encouragement, and independence are important. With this approach, you try to teach your children to become responsible. You have clear boundaries and rules, often made in communication with your child. You will try to understand how your child is feeling. You show respect and expect respect in return. 

Luckily, I can see myself in this parenting style too. When being authoritative in parenting, it is important for you to coach your child. You want your child to succeed and you want them to be independent and make good choices. 

Steven Covey, the author of (among many other books) 7 Habits of Highly Efficient People, once gave a presentation on parenting and he gives a perfect example of an authoritative parent. You can watch the video here: Green and Clean.

 

What kind of parenting style do you have?

If you are like me, you might lean more to one style than the other, but you find your self in all of those styles at some point, depending on the situations. 

Why is this important?

It is pretty obvious that authoritative parenting is what we should strive for, and for good reason. Laurer and Laurer describe it like this:

“Children can survive an authoritarian or permissive parenting style, but they are unlikely to thrive. Instead, they are prone to develop attitudes and behavior that are detrimental both to high-quality interpersonal relationships and to their own physical and emotional well- being.” (Laurer and Laurer p 277) 

Who doesn’t want their children to thrive? I believe that most of us do our very best to be good parents, but sometimes we just do what our parents did to us, or we just do the “try and fail method”. I didn’t know that counting to three was a bad thing… at least I didn’t know that it might affect my child’s “physical and emotional well-being”.  For me, that is reason enough to try to adopt a more authoritative style. I am sure that I will fail miserably many times, but at least I am trying, and many times I will succeed. This is what intentional parenting is all about; what do I want for my children and what am I doing to help them get there?

 

References

Lauer, R. H., & Lauer, J.C. (2018). Marriage And Family: The Quest for Intimacy, Ninth

               Edition. Alliant International University, San Diego: McGraw-Hill Education.

 

“I thank God for … parents who are serious about their commitment to righteous, intentional parenting” Russell M. Nelson (April 2018)

What is intentional parenting?

When I had my first child, I would read everything I came over about parenting, about babies, what was good for them and what not. By the time my third child was born, I had stopped reading. I realized that it just made me feel bad when I wasn’t able to always keep my babies on their back when sleeping, only give them homemade vegetable purees, breastfeed till they were two, keep them out of my bed at night, they weren’t dry by the age of 2,5, wasn’t able to read goodnight stories to them every night, and when I realized that no one could make me as angry as they could make me. I felt like a failure every time I read about how I should do things and realizing that I fell short too many times.

I wish I had kept it up because parenting is NOT like riding a bike. You don’t learn it once and then you know how to do it the rest of your life. New (and old) challenges constantly come your way. 

I think this is what President Nelson meant by intentional parenting; setting goals and actively choosing how to be a parent. I wish I had been more intentional about my parenting.  Not that I have done a bad job. I have wonderful children (not at all bias), but I think that I could have made things even better for me and them by being more reflected and made active choices about how I want to parent.

People say that they wish their kids came with a manual. Honestly speaking, we have so much information and great resources available to us about parenting, that we can’t really use that excuse anymore. 

The goal of this blog is to give parents some ideas on how we can become more intentional with our parenting. I hope you will read and add your comments to my post. I am sure we have different experiences and views that will enrich and widen our perspectives and help us become more intentional.