Does Giving Praise Harm Children

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Throughout history, people have quickly commented “good job” to their children thinking that this is encouraging good behavior, but is this effective? Alfie Kohn, Phillip S. Strain, and Gail E. Joseph are three of the popular scholars who have thoroughly researched the effects of giving praise to children. Kohn believes that praising children for their achievements will negatively affect them in their lives and make then dependent on their elders approval. Alternatively, Strain and Joseph believe that positive reinforcement actually helps kids differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Although an overabundance of praise to a child can have harmful effects, I believe that adequate amounts of praise strengthens children’s behavior, thus I supports Strain and Joseph. Alfie Kohn rested his belief that praise harms children on five concrete reasons. The first is that praise manipulates children and has been nicknamed “sugar-coated control” by Rheta DeVries. She named praise this because she believed that telling a child “good job” gets him/her to comply to our wishes. Both Kohn and DeVries believe that by positively reinforcing a child, you are taking away their independence. Secondly, Kohn believed that praise can create praise junkies our of our children. This has become a fierce cycle in which the more someone praises a child, the more the child feels that he needs the praise, therefore we increase the amount of positive reinforcement a child receives. By praising a child, we tell him/her how to feel. This steals a child’s pleasure, which is Kohn’s third reason. In telling a kid how they did, they are not able to think for themselves or be proud of their actions. Next, Kohn stated that giving praise made children lose interest in what they were doing. Research has shown that the more we reward children for doing something, the more they lose
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