Pay praise forward to kids

Pvt. Joker

by Chris Foreman

After Mr. Simonet classifies Trevor's extra credit idea for making the world a better place as "admirable," Trevor pursues his teacher after school to question his sincerity. Was Mr. Simonet genuine, or was he just being "teachery"?

For all the optimism in his idea, Trevor, played by Haley Joel Osment in the movie Pay It Forward, seems to be a 13-year-old boy who would not recognize a compliment even if it were splattered over a banana split.

His character is fictional, but while I watched the film I recalled the factual accounts of children I read about in an Oct. 18 article in The New York Times titled "New Advice for Parents: Saying 'That's Great!' May Not Be."

The article explained that many educators and psychologists assert children who are praised for every piddly activity they perform are less motivated and more pressured to meet expectations as they grow. "...less praise is often better and frequent praise for unexceptional actions can actually have a negative impact on children," according to the article.

I do not want to see children commended for mediocre effort, but I am not ready to blame parents or teachers for rewarding mediocre results.

When I reflect upon my childhood, I remember thinking I could accomplish anything – save hitting a home run in Little League – because my parents told me that I could. It wasn't that my parents thought I was switched at birth with Superman, but that they didn't want me to impose limits on myself.

I wanted to patrol center field for the Pittsburgh Pirates and be an architect during the off-season, and I was encouraged to achieve those goals. I like knowing it was my evaluation of my (lack of) talent – coupled with the trouble I had trying to hit a curveball – that determined the end of my baseball career at age 14.

Without my parents' encouragement, I might have become disillusioned with sports or other ventures and missed out on years of fun. Because of their support, I grew up to be confident in my classes and carried an attitude that I could compete with anyone in any endeavor. I concede the latter contention was far from valid, but it is much easier to chip away at an ego than to inflate it.

Notwithstanding, when I reached my teens, my parents' solace didn't satisfy many of the questions I had about my skills. I expect parents to be biased, and for the purposes of helping to establish self-esteem in a child, maybe they should be. So, they pass objectivism off to teachers.

Rebecca Pankrantz, a fourth grade teacher at Chauncey Elementary School, said she agrees with the article that praising might be overused. She added, however, that it is impossible not to praise kids.

"The classroom is different from the home because each of the children needs something different," she said. "There needs to be a balance in praising. You should praise kids, but it should be specific."

If teachers confine the number of compliments they give, how do kids know when they are doing something "right"? If children are praised only for the most outstanding accomplishments, will we get the opposite of the lack of motivation to complete a task – the belief that no effort will ever be good enough?

In either case, we are building expectations. If we applaud everything a child does, the exceptional becomes average. If we congratulate only the top achievements, though, a child might become frustrated with some activity (and sometimes it takes time to develop a skill). In either case, we risk having kids quit.

So, what can we do as a society? Articles like the one in The New York

Times complicate the real issue. Such an article is printed to spook parents into thinking they are doing something wrong. The media inundate parents with pictures of Columbine High School, asking questions of the general that apply more to the specific.

The parents and teachers who say "That's great!" to their children are not the problem; the ones who don't say it are.

In Pay It Forward, Trevor's parents are both alcoholics. Trevor's father has abandoned the family, while his mother works two jobs and frequently falls off the wagon of recovery. The example is extreme, but illustrative of a kid who lacks much positive reinforcement.

Parents and teachers will advance society by continuing to praise children for demonstrated abilities, outgoing behavior and learned moral principles. Their children will then grow into accomplished adults who will pay the values forward to the following generation.

Foreman, a senior journalism major, can be reached at cforeman7@hotmail.com. Pvt. Joker appears on Wednesdays.