A child who hears corrections all day has usually stopped hearing general approval, because general approval is what adults say regardless. "Good job" is noise. It carries no information, so it does not survive contact with a day where they have been told off four times.
Specific praise survives, because it cannot have been said about anybody.
The shape that lands
| Instead of | Say | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Good job! | You asked for help instead of giving up. That takes real courage. | Names the act, then what it says about them |
| I'm so proud of you | You told the truth when it was hard. That is who you are when it counts. | About them, not about you |
| You were good today | You said yes the first time, twice. That is real self-control. | Checkable, so it is believable |
| Thank you for finally doing it | You sat down and did the hard part first. | No sting attached to the compliment |
Three things that quietly cancel it
- “…finally.” Any praise with a complaint stapled to it is heard as the complaint.
- “…see, that wasn't hard, was it?” This tells a child the thing they found difficult was not difficult, which teaches them their own experience is wrong.
- Praise as a lever. "You were so good yesterday, why not today?" turns yesterday's compliment retroactively into a stick, and they will discount the next one.
Why the points are not the point
A chart's number is scaffolding. What a child is actually collecting is the experience of an adult noticing something and saying it out loud. If the system pays only in numbers, you have built something that keeps score without ever saying the sentence — and the sentence was the thing that mattered.
So say it. The chart is there to make sure you notice; it is not a substitute for telling them.