154 HAWAII PARENT September/October 2024 ENCOURAGE SELF-PRAISE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE. As you praise your child, you can help him or her to recognize well-deserved compliments by saying something like, “You must feel proud that you studied so hard to understand fractions.” Recognizing your child’s feelings helps him to independently identify when he has done a ‘good job’ without an adult saying so, which in turn leads to selfmotivation and greater selfesteem. We all want our children to feel motivated and encouraged. We want to praise them because we are genuinely proud of them. But changing habits to offer more process-oriented, specific, and authentic praise helps our children to feel more confident and loved while they tackle challenges and grow - and this positive praise will most likely still produce a big smile. is important for parents to be mindful and monitor what they say.” Children can sense when praise is sincere; if it is not, they can lose trust, feel insecure, or even take this unauthentic praise as a sign of failure. If a ‘good job’ is always heard, how will your child confide in you for honest feedback when they need help to really do a ‘good job’? Additionally, overpraise can cause a child to rely on external validation before taking new risks. “Parents should avoid praising children for doing behaviors that are expected,” adds Loomis. If your child has proven that she knows how and when to say ‘thank you’, then you may not praise her for this positive behavior; instead, if she does not say ‘thank you’ a loving reprimand may be in order. This positive praise will most likely still produce a big smile. “Authentic praise helps our children to feel more confident and loved while they tackle challenges and grow.”
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