Everyone says it and it drives me NUTS!! Nathan loves to hand money over when we buy things from a shop….the shop person receiving the money will say it. Close family or friends might say it in response to him doing something they wanted him to do. I’m sure Ebony (his nanny) says it. People we don’t know will say it if they happen to chat to us in the supermarket or on the beach. However, it’s a phrase I try very hard not to say (took a while to get the hang of it but the words rarely pass my lips these days) and something Andrew tries hard with (and is succeeding) as well.

The idea behind it (for those of you who read here and don’t know) is that you want your child to do things because they want to do them, and not because it pleases his parents or others. The idea is that this can set up the trap that the child needs to keep performing to feel accepted and loved, and by not telling him that he is a good boy after he puts in some effort can make him feel rejected (and I know someone who has real…and sad…experience with this and their child). It potentially raises a child that is dependent upon praise for the approval of others, and can make him scared to try new things. There is a lot of information about this philosophy to be found in books and on the internet. The thing is, it makes sense to me. I can’t see the point of saying “good boy” if Nathan eats his meal or gets me the whisk from the drawer in the kitchen. What makes more sense to me is to comment on the fact that he finished his meal, and simply say “thank you” for getting the whisk. Of course there can be more words put in there to help clarify why you’re saying and why you’re saying it which also helps. And the praise isn’t restricted to the ‘good boy’ phrase. It certainly goes further, so we deliberately find other ways of recognising effort rather than using an easy praise phrase. Examples might be: for doing a painting (“great painting” vs a discussion of what was painted and the colours used) or kicking in the pool (“great kicking” vs “you’re kicking is improving with all the practice you’ve been doing”).

I love it when I see Nathan rejoice in what he has managed to achieve. No praise is required…you can simply see the joy in his face and in the delighted way he claps his hands. It’s wonderful, and so easy to join in on without using a praise phrase. So it almost broke my heart yesterday when Nathan was ‘helping’ to vacuum the floor, and repeating over and over and over “good boy, good boy, good boy”. He wouldn’t let me take the vacuum cleaner from him even after he’d spent ages vacuuming, and he repeated his little mantra much of the time. It seemed to me that he was doing it just so he would get the praise that he wanted, even though I know that he does like playing with the vacuum cleaner. I eventually had a discussion with him about how he is a good boy but not because he was vacuuming, and how Daddy and I love him no matter what he does. He was happy to stop vacuuming soon afterwards, so I’m not sure if it’s because I told him he was good or if he would have done it anyway. Either way, it’s made me determined that I ask people who regularly spend time with him to try not to use such phrases.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Nathan's second year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.