praise

Before I start, can I just say that "praise" is one of those words where the longer you look at it, the more weird and misspelled it appears? No? Okay. Down to business.

While I was just eating my lunch, I was reading a blog about promoting healthy self-esteem and preventing eating disorders in young girls and keeping them from wanting to be objectified or sexualized or something. And while I am all in favor in preventing eating disorders and promoting self-esteem and keeping objectification and sexualization within the province of those who are old enough to know what they're choosing, one of the little pieces of advice given seemed off to me. It was suggested that you only praise girls for such things as their kindness and intelligence, not for being pretty or "other superficial qualities."

I guess one of my problems with this is that praising someone for their intelligence is the same thing as praising them for their beauty. It's not something you have any control over; the genetic lottery just came up in your favor. So why is one fair game to be positively commented on and the other isn't? Well, obviously, because the blog writer's bias is that we should only care about brains, not appearance.

Which leads me to my next problem with this. That's not how society works. That's never been how society works. Standards of physical appearance may have varied widely between cultures and over history, but there's never been a culture on Earth that didn't have one. So, to totally ignore a young girl's appearance while praising her for every other positive attribute she possesses isn't apt to instill a healthy body image in her. She's going to think you aren't praising it because there's nothing nice you can say. (Trust me, I've been a girl. I know this shit.)

I've heard alternately, that what you should praise in kids is their accomplishments only. And I have a problem with that, too. I got lots of praise as a kid and as a young woman for getting good grades and winning awards and such, but really? I knew that those things came super easy for me and weren't really an accomplishment. I didn't dislike being praised for them, of course, and I did take some pride in them, but even when I was pretty young, I was aware that for some people, getting a C was more of an accomplishment than my getting an A.

So, my philosophy? I think you ought to praise kids for everything positive you see in them. Praise them when they do a kindness. Praise them when they get a good grade. Praise the way they draw or run or sing. Tell them they have a smart brain and pretty hair and they look nice in their new dress-up clothes. It's all good.

xoxo