– by Veronique Vanderbeke
I stumbled upon RIE when my sweet, darling baby boy turned into a toddler. Fortunately I was part of a mommy group with children of all about the same age. One mommy started attending a local RIE class. She got the ball rolling for all of us.
At first RIE helped me by giving me clear, respectful guidelines to deal with my one year old. But as I read more, there was one RIE-aspect that really struck a cord with me. The avoidance of praise and punishment.
As all parents know, parenting can be confrontational. You gain insight into how your own upbringing affects you now as an adult and parent. I personally have learned how being raised with rewards and praise has totally messed me up.
My dad was a child psychologist. Maybe it was the new trend back then in child psychology. Or maybe he was distancing himself from the punitive way he was brought up. I don’t know. And I’ll never know, since my parents passed away when I was a young teen.
By then the damage was done. After 14 years of getting rewards (praise, toys or money) for solid grades, a great performance in gymnastics, helping out around the house or good behavior I had lost all sight of who I really was and what I really wanted.
When I graduated from high school and thus left boarding school , I lost the last controlling influence in my life. And it turned out I had never developed inner motivational skills. With no one to please, college was a disaster. I dropped out three times, before the pressure of having to HAVE a degree finally put a fire under my ass to start and finish my bachelor in Journalism.
Now as a married woman and a stay-at-home-mom of an almost three year old, I still struggle with the effects of being raised with rewards. When I clean the house, I think of how it will please my husband. When I cook dinner, I only care whether my husband will like it or not. My day has been satisfactory, when my son had fun.
Every day I struggle to figure out who I am and what I want. It is luckily becoming clearer. I’m better at reminding myself to find the joy in an activity for me. Me. I’m learning to appreciate the process and not just the rewarding results. And I am dealing with my crippling fear of failure. (Write a post for the Tongonto-blog? I can’t. It won’t be good enough!)
Luckily this realization has helped me with my son. Without any ‘good jobs’ or ‘do it for mama’s ‘ he does everything because he wants to. He does enjoy the process of making a puzzle. He draws whatever he wants, without a care of whether mama or daddy will like it. We do share in his enjoyment of the activity and acknowledge his accomplishments. But we don’t let our wants and needs influence his.
I can only hope the three of us can keep this up. I would love to see whom my son will grow up to be. I want to see him, all of him. Not a little bit of him and a lot of what everyone else wants him to be.
What a great illustration of how praise can affect our thinking patterns! I should share this with my husband, who has a habit of “good job”. Thanks, Veronique.
There are 3 types of praise- 2 are great yet they are rarely used by parents. The third one is used a lot – it is evaluative praise- the “good jobbing” or ” bad jobbing” that parents habitual do. This evaluative teaches a child to live based on external praises- either punishment or rewards. YET it does not teach. It gives a red light yet fails to give a green light to the child- it is more of a benefit for the parent than for the child. The other 2 types of praise are descriptive and appreciative. Description is simply describing what you see or perceive- example “You used green colors for your drawing ” it lets the child evaluative themselves- it gears the child if any judgment is needed. The third, appreciative tells the child what you liked such as ” I appreciated you helping me carrying in groceries from the car- now I have more time to prepare our dinner”. Please see my mentor Chick Moorman in Parent Talk for more detailed descriptions of Praise. ALso Alfie Kohn at ALfie Kohn.com has an excellent article to pass onto friends about the absurdity of good jobbing our kids- Charlespippi
Thanks for sharing! I have been working on using descriptive and evaluative praise for months (I receive email newsletters from Moorman and Haller) and I’m noticing that it is coming pretty naturally to me now. Like Veronique, I was also praised and rewarded as a child and having my dad be proud of me has been one of the biggest measures of my success in life. I want more freedom for my son!
This really resonated with me Veronique. I’ve also fallen into that trap and also seem to lack self motivation as well.
I’ll look forward to hearing more of your journey!
Wow! I could have written this, making me think and focus more on this not happening to my boy. Thank you!
Wow, so interesting to hear about this issue from someone who has felt the implications for themselves. Thanks for sharing!