Problems with praising your child too much

Are there problems with praising your child too much? Yes there are.

Every book on parenting tells you how important it is to praise your child and most parents take this very literally and grab every opportunity to praise their children.

Now, while in a lot of situations praise is really good for your child, there are times when you can overdo the praise and too much praise can really be harmful for your child.

When we praise children we do it

(a) to encourage them when they are learning something new and

(b) to show them what kind of behavior is appropriate and acceptable.

So its OK to clap your hands and say wow and very good when your child is learning something but once the learning phase is over it is important to gradually reduce the praise and eventually stop praising your child for doing what he is supposed to do anyway.

Once your child has learnt to do something – he should do it because he likes to do it and because it makes him feel competent.

When you continue to praise your child all the time for everything he gets addicted to the praise.

Addiction to praise is bad for anyone and it can be disastrous for a little child.

When a child gets addicted to praise he begins to do things only to hear you praise him. And this can be terrible for your child when he goes to preschool because his teacher is not going to praise him all the time for everything.

Before your child begins preschool he must get used to intermittent and delayed praise from adults.

You must teach your child how to work alone – how to pat himself on the back and say yes you did a good job and to take a quiet pride in his own achievement without needing external praise.

Being able to function independently without constant praise will help your child settle very well into the preschool classroom and make him popular with his teachers.

Try it – it will make the preschool experience really pleasant for your child