- The evaluator is in a position to judge the “goodness” of the
action or production.
When either of these assumptions is not true, praise falls flat.
Encouragement has several advantages over praise:• It makes no assumptions about the relationship. It can be
bad, neutral, or good.
• It assumes children can judge their own behavior or output
and make decisions on how to (or not to) modify things in the
future.
• It always accepts the evaluation of the child, even if the self-
evaluation is too harsh.If the self-evaluation is too harsh, praisers often end up arguing with
the child. For instance:
ADULT: “What a beautiful painting!”
CHILD: “I don’t think so.”
ADULT: “Why not?”
CHILD: “The nose is too big.” (Now the judgment of the evaluator is
being questioned, so the argument begins.)
ADULT: “I’m not so sure that’s true.”
CHILD: “Well, it is.”
ADULT: “I don’t think so!”
CHILD: “Is too!”
ADULT: “Is not.”
The situation is different with encouragement:
ADULT: (with a happy and encouraging voice) “Wow, what do you
think of your picture?”
CHILD: “I don’t like it.”
ADULT: “Why is that?”
CHILD: “The nose is too big.”