By Steve Coxsey
A few weeks back I read a news blurb online about young adults new to the corporate workplace who weren’t handling evaluations and reviews very well. When they were criticized, they were likely to wind up crying and falling apart. Talk radio picked this up and had a lot of fun with it, as you can imagine.
Recently the story returned as news reports came out about “Praise Consultants” being hired by companies to help them handle these seemingly delicate employees. Why so delicate?
The prevailing understanding is that they have grown up being praised nearly constantly and excessively for whatever they do. In a severely distorted misunderstanding of self-esteem, parents and educators heap glowing praise on mediocre, and even inadequate, performance.
This points to an interesting twist. People who are fragile and can’t handle criticism don’t have high self-esteem. They are usually filled with self-doubt and insecurity. Overdone praise doesn’t help kids feel good about themselves. In fact, it probably feeds into their uncertainty and insecurity.
It works like this. When a person is unsure about how he or she is doing, and thinks there’s a lot of room for improvement, it doesn’t work for someone to say, “Oh! That’s wonderful. You’re so creative/so athletic/so smart!” The kid, unsure but still capable of discernment, is either going to think, “What do you know? You can’t tell wonderful from average so your opinion is useless,” or even worse, “You don’t really mean it so you’re just trying to protect my feelings. I must be awful.” That’s one way that piles of empty praise destroy confidence.
Another way empty praise causes fragile self-esteem is when the child gets used to waiting for the parent, or the teacher, or the coach to evaluate his or her performance instead of learning to trust himself or herself. The default answer becomes, “If someone else says it’s good then it’s good. If no one else says it then it must not be good.” So the child becomes an adult dependent on other people’s praise in order to feel worthwhile.
What solves this problem? Specific and honest praise. And sometimes it’s just specific and honest observation.
Play therapists closely studying child development have learned that a child develops self-esteem by trying on new things and mastering new skills. They develop the ability to evaluate their own performance when they get clear and helpful feedback. Dr. Haim Ginott was one of the pioneers of play therapy, and two of his students, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, write about specific praise in How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk. Instead of saying, “That’s so beautiful!” when a child shows a parent the picture he or she drew, they suggest describing it. “I see a red house with a chimney and smoke coming out. There are clouds and that’s the sun. That looks like it’s an animal, maybe a dog. I feel happy when I look at this picture.”
The message to the child: My parent is paying attention to my work and trying to understand what I am doing.
When a child leaves the court at the end of a difficult basketball game, instead of the parent saying, “You played great. What an athlete you are!” it’s more helpful if the comments are specific and honest. “I saw you running hard even when your team was way behind. I know you missed some shots and you’re probably disappointed, but you kept trying. I also noticed you passed the ball when you were under pressure. That’s what the coach has been teaching the team so you’re paying attention and learning.”
That’s powerful “mojo” that speaks right to a child’s heart. If it’s undeniably true and offered with kindness and empathy, it is received as attentive love. It carries encouragement to keep trying when things are tough and to accept there are good and bad times. It’s the kind of message a child will carry into adulthood that will help him or her put a supervisor’s harsh evaluation into perspective and find the strength to make necessary improvements.
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Steve Coxsey is a Personal and Business Development Coach who advocates The Mentorship Approach to Leadership. He enjoys coaching on creative career change, mentorship skills for parents, teachers, and other leaders, and stronger connections in families and small groups. He and his wife have two sons, one in high school and one in elementary. Steve has a Blog-Zine on Dynamic Change Through Mentorship at www.ChasingWisdom.com.
