Do we make a child happier when we say “well done” to him? No, we accustom him to praise, like a drug. We all need honest and human feedback, but it does not involve evaluation. Where does our habit of evaluating and comparing children lead us?
If one day I was evaluated — and here it almost does not matter, positively or negatively — they told me: “You are great!”, Then “Five!”, Then “That was so good!”, I gradually develop a kind of addiction to assessments . And then I start doing something, not because I’m interested in it, not because I find myself in it, but in order to be praised.
Grade addiction is like a drug addiction. When I can’t do something very important without evaluation, I say, almost shout to the other person, “Praise me! I can’t live without it! How can I live without it, how can I move on? Where to look for landmarks?
And we have guidelines inside. We know well what we want, where to go. Especially if we have not grown very much, we have not been very imbued with the evaluation and comparative field.
Please note that young children know very well what they want.
And then over time it starts to disappear somewhere. Gradually, there is a substitution of interest for the desire to receive praise, a substitution of human relations with this very system of assessments, balances, and at some point we find ourselves not in a relationship of love with our child, but in a relationship of so-called «education».
We realize that we can hardly afford to be ourselves — just to love, just to accept the love of another. For example, when a person comes to me and says: “I cleaned the class” or “I washed the plate”, “I read a book”, and does not receive any conditional-evaluative recharge, at first the person literally dries up before our eyes.
It really is very similar to drug addiction. But if you stop evaluating, over time a person gradually thaws, learns to hear himself and follow his goals. And it turns out that you can read a book because it is interesting, you can clean the room for yourself, because you like order.
Parents mistakenly believe that the child himself will never do what is important, curious, interesting, if some adult with a whip does not stand behind him. This is not true. Our children are thin and smart enough to decide what really matters to them without us.
A person does not act because he is evaluated or compared with others. Against. We have a desire to know the world. A small child is curious about everything. He looks in all directions, wants to stick his fingers everywhere, lick a hill in winter. For him, the world is beautiful, everything is very interesting to him. Motivation comes from within. And it goes very, very hard.
And here it is very important not to kill this interest, curiosity, thirst for knowledge in the child with assessments and comparisons: “And that boy read more”, “And this girl made fewer mistakes” … Can this teach someone something or motivate them to read more? Or learn grammar?
Of course, everyone needs feedback. Everything should be built on honest and human feedback. But it doesn’t have to include evaluation.
Moreover, good feedback is just a rating and does not include
Instead of «Great!» or “C grade for you” is much more important to discuss with the child the result of his work. What did you want to achieve? What tools? What worked or didn’t work? What can be done together to get the desired result? How can I help you?
And if instead of an assessment, a person receives such feedback, then the process becomes amazing, the results change very much and turn out to be amazing. If we want our children to grow up understanding what they want and know how to go for it, discovering new things with pleasure, our task is to help them overcome the pressure of the evaluation system.
First of all, you need to let a person understand that he is beautiful, that you accept him as such and are always ready to help. Let him have a rear, a place where he is not compared with anyone.