Can you often praise your child?

Hello youless!:-) My child is still very young, just 14 months old, but he has shown well above average mental, analytical and social growth. So, I do am proud of him, not to mention his already calling me dad (of course in my own language):-) I do think that appreciation, when and where it's due, is very, very important, rather crucial, for child's development and upbringing. It does help very positively in bringing about the best of child's qualities and talents, thus making him/her able to explore with more zeal, enthusiasm and valor. However, I also think that it's parents duty to keep their child away from harms way. Here, I do not mean to restrict child's experimentation and explorations. What I mean here is to keep them away from things that can harm them, like sharp objects, electricity or anything that is dangerous. They do not know about dangers present in many things and just out of curiosity they like to explore everything. But, I don't support scolding or beating and such for stopping children from such things, as such methods hurt their self esteem and self respect. I think they are intelligent and they can understand that somethings are not very good to experiment. It's parents duty to define these boundaries for them in the most respectful way!:-)

You are so right...I used to praise my older one all the time when he was younger. Well, that made him think too much of himself and I also needed him to learn that he should be able to appreciate everyone and not think that he was the greatest gift to mankind. But as far as the yelling goes....I do slip into it sometimes even though I do not mean to. When I stopped and thought about it, I realized that I do it when I am too frustrated and have too many things happening and have no control over anything. I have talked to him and asked him to help me control that part...we have a signal that he uses to let me know that I might be in the 'going mad' mode...and then I stop myself. It's working so far and both of us are happy. But I personally feel that criticism is not harmful to a child...yelling is...but positive criticism is good...the kids need to know when they are not doing things well too.

thats also what i am gonna to do with my children later on. i am just only with my husband at this moment and get planning to get our first child in the nearby. i also see some parenting ways and i agree with your parenting my dear friend. i trully hope that i would able to be like that later since my herritage is not like that. i think there is nothing wrong to choose different parenting method for the goodness of our children, right?

Hello dear youless. I think that it is very important to praise not only our own kids, but it is the same with the students. To praise will help them a lot in gaining their self-confidence and self-respect and generating their creativity. Think about it when we adults are praised. Do we think about doing a better job and feel like doing it to a more satisfactory degree? Yes, absolutely yes. So let's praise our kids, our friends and such to make them do a better job.

Praising the good deeds of our children will help them develop their self esteem and confidence. Likewise giving them constructive critism will similarly help them develop their personality and help them grow into what want them to be. Scolding sometimes do not help but explaining why they have done wrong will be a better option to discipline and mold them to what we want them to be.

yes i always praise my children.i also tell them i love them.its funny when my children say goodbye they yell out love you mum,and peoples heads turn in surprise and they often comment on how lovely it is that they say i love you.i tell my son how good he has behaved and his little eyes shine with happiness,so it is a good thing to praise them when they are good.cheers sue

I cannot agree more w. Children need to be praised especially when they are young. After they grow up slightly, you need to still praise them and cajole them gently to achieving their full potential. If we have expectations we will have to work with them to fulfil our expectations. I , in fact both husband and I have always encouraged and praised our son though I used to sit with him through his studies and my husband also gave enough attention to him encouraging him to read extra books. till date we have no regrets beause by God's grace he studied brilliantly well and came out as an All India Rank holder in the toughest professional exam [where the pass rate is 6% .He also did a competitive exam and got into the best management Institute here. We are friends and in facthe says that we have spoilt him.He is a very good and sensible child and never gave any trouble whatsoever. I am also conscious that we should not give biassed view points to him because it would impede his progress. Even now, at the age of 26, he asks me to read his extra creative writing [ because I like it] and I always offer constructive criticism. If we praise , encourage and work with the child he would be encouraged to do better. But this is an ongoing process. I used to gently ask him how his preparation for his professional exam was progreessing in a very gentle manner even after he grew up and I have taken down notes for him when the portions were far too vast and he had too much on his plate[ he finished this said exam at an extraordinary age of 21.Normally people finish it only at 23 or 24 or leave it lifelong. So, the moral of my story is that children should be encouraged and praised [exaggerated praise when they are young and due praise as they grow up].This will make them perform and then it would become a habit[whatever field he chooses]

I do have 1 yr 8months old son every time he does good deeds i really praise him im so happy when i see him doing new good things..

It is good to use praise and meet the needs of your child! Also, when the child is still an infant, pick up the infant and hold close to you, as often as sit is required!

were working on that, we dont critize, or do we scream often. We just got custody a year ago from an abusive father so we need to be more praiseful than normal b/c he has a low self esteem. At first we didnt notice the low self esteem as much and was trying to adjust him from there rules to our rules which is much more liniate but at the same time he knows what is what. Now we got that down and he started doing his homework in less amount of time we need to work on his self esteem. I had a low self esteem when i was his age too, and i see so much the same. to let you know he is my step kid and hes about to be 10. he has good days where hes fine then he has his bad days where the littlest thing will make him sulk. In school he lets every little thing bug him, like i did when i was that age. wearing his fellings on his shoulders. I'm trying to teach him that thats what they feed on is seeing your reaction so they will keep bugging him. I told my fiance that we need to start apprasing him every chance and telling him hes such a beautiful child (or whatever boys like to hear) i know that my mom always telling me how beautiful i was even though i was a big nerd in school and no boy wanted to date me, it still made me fill better and be a better person. I do know that we will work this out and it will get better.

I praised my kids very often, almost daily and I still beat them when they are naughty. I think I'm like most parents yell and criticize them when they did something that make me really angry.

yes,my friend it true praising your child is good thing,,but sometimes you cant controll your self if he grows up and change his attitude...

I think praise and scold are both essential to educating a child. Just as you put it in your post, praising your child will give him or her confidence in doing things, and more importantly, tell him or her the right from wrong. But I still think scold your child is necessary. Why? Parental prestige, sorry that I don't know if I put it correctly. When your child grows up in an environment of no criticism at all, he or she will not accustomed to the life of our society -- we will be scolded by our boss or superiors from time to time, won't we? Secondly, if you don't have a kind of parental prestige over your child, probably, he or she will not listen to you when grows up. But I believe praising your child often is not a bad thing. But be aware that going to either extreme -- praising or scolding -- will lead to unfavorable situations.

I am a student.so i dont have a child.lol...However,i think i can answer your question. Of course,I think it is very necessary..Only by doing thin can your give your children more motive.Besides,proper criticism is necessary is nessary,too.And then he should know what he does is right or not.

I hope you don't actually think that wanting to be your childs friend when they get older is what your child needs. No matter how old you get your kids still want their parents to be their parents not their friends. Maybe you are meaning that you can both be so open and honest and be able to talk about anything in the world is what you really meant to say.

I am not a parent but I had the best parent, my mom. She would praise the good things I did and criticized me when I did something wrong. I always knew that she was proud of me.She was breaking a pattern.My mother's mom Never praised my mom in person. She would brag to other people but not to my mom. That is wrong I feel. So as long as you tell your son that he did a great job to his face , you are doing right.

i have four children and they are all teens. i praise them and give them a hug when it is time ti praise them. i criticize them too. i cant just say that they are all so good so wonderful and leave out the criticism. people out there will criticize them and before they hear that from other people it is better that they hear it from me. i dont beat my child i spank them. but that was before they grew up to be nice teens. of course sometimes we have misunderstandings well i expect that because i am a teen once. i always praise them. criticize them in a noce way and tell them nicely.

the new thing in parenting and discipline is positive reinforcement. You reward and praise the good things your kids do, you ignore the behaviors they are not supposed to do unless it is a threat to themselves or others. Sometimes it works. I have my doubts about pumping kids with lies though for their self esteem. I have met so many people with so many problems but their self esteem is through the roof so they don't strive to do better or improve. I don't mean major problems, just things they should try to do better but they don't think they need to for whatever reason.

Yes, I guess praising a kid gives them a certain level of confidence at that young age. I still don't have my own kid yet but I have a step-son and we often praise him for a good job that he would do. And I guess it helps him a lot. My siblings and I grew up with a lot of praises too and that really built up our self-confidence. So I guess if I will have my own kid in the future, I would raise him/her up the same way I was raised.

In my psychology classes, I have learned that positive reinforcement (giving something like praise) always works better than negative reinforcement (taking something away) when reinforcing a behavior. Kids are no exception. Kids respond well to praise. It helps them establish self-esteem and feel good about themselves to know that they are doing things that their parents approve of. Before I even started to study psychology, I always praised my son whenever he did something good, even if it was something small and insignificant. I suppose I do this primarily because my parents were very negative towards me even though I was a very good, well-behaved child. I remember how miserable it was to never get a, "I'm proud of you" or a, "You did a great job" from my parents. It's wonderful that you want to be friends with your child, but remember that sometimes, as a parent, you can't afford to be friends with your children. There will be times when you might have to be "the bad guy" for a while in order to set your child straight. At times, you might yell or criticize your child, but every parent does this at some point or another. As parents, we can not be perfect all the time. We are human, just like our children and can only do our best. Sometimes we might do things we regret, but it's important to realize the mistake and try to do better the next time a similar situation presents itself.