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Rabbi Say. We're talking about praise. We have a lot to get through today. So we want to talk about motivation. With praise. First question: Why does praise have such an impact on us? When you're doing something and your parents praise you, a rebbe praises you, a teacher praises you, a coach praises you, a boss praises you, it has a tremendous impact on you. Why does praise have such an impact? The answer is because life is vulnerable. That is the natural state of life. And in that state of vulnerability, what makes us feel safe is a feeling of importance. Do I matter? Am I valued? In that vulnerable state, if somebody knows that they're valued and they're important, that provides for them the courage to lean into the discomfort and engage the vulnerability of the world. Say that one more time. Make sure everybody gets it. This is an important thesis. Life is vulnerable.
It's going to require courage to lean into the discomfort of the vulnerability of life. You need a baseline amount of safety in order to get that courage. Safety can come in many ways, but one of the ways it comes from is praise, because praise makes us feel valued. It makes us feel important, and in that sense of self, a healthy sense of self, one has the courage to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability. That's the thesis statement as to why praise helps us. And so, as parents, we're gonna want to praise our children to give them that courage to lean into the vulnerability of life. And everyone has is that it praise satisfies our need to be recognized. It affirms our importance. That builds our confidence. It tells us we have a place in this world, and that increases our capacity for success. So what do we as parents want to do in order to give these gifts to our child? When a child feels recognized, important, and that gives the child courage, confidence, and tells them that they have a place, that increases their chance for success. These are the gifts we want to give to our children.
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By the way, they're gifts we want to give to ourselves also. Nothing wrong with praising yourself and saying, "Hey, I did a good job" But for sure, as parents, we want to give these things to our children. What does that look like? Number one Pay attention to the positive aspects of your child so you can give authentic praise. Meaning praise that's inauthentic does not help. The child knows that this praise doesn't mean anything, right? If you are the type of person that's always saying wonderful, beautiful things, it's not going to impact the child if the child himself knows that it's a lie, right? So it's like if the kid is totally misbehaving and the parent comes to pick the kid up, and then the rebbe comes to the door and he puts his arm around the kid's shoulder as he's escorting him out of the class and he says, 'Your son is mamish et zadek.' The child knows that he has not been behaving appropriately in class.
And so that praise means nothing Good rebbeim will say something like. He's heading in the right direction. If indeed he's heading in the right direction, they're gonna accurately describe the positive, but they're gonna do it authentically so that the kid actually knows that it's praise. And what we want to do when we're speaking about praise is rather than pointing out poor behavior, we're gonna try to pay attention to the positive behavior. And here's why: when you point out poor behavior, you're actually rewarding negative behavior. Because all attention is valued So whether you're giving positive attention or negative attention, a child values attention. And so if the kid is doing something wrong, and then you point it out and you start to criticize it, what sometimes happens, what even oftentimes happens, is the child says, "Hey, I got to rise out of my parents," and that even negative attention is valued to the child. So what we're going to focus on today is just pure. One hundred percent positive praise. Yehuda Pinsker.
Is that like the same type of thing with school shootings? The reason why people do it is because they think they'll get put in a pot in a light, even though it's not positive light, but still attention. That's the extreme version of it. Let's take a more moderate version to make sure we're all on the same page. But you're definitely right. Let's say you have a kid in class who's constantly misbehaving, and the Rebbe is just constantly criticizing the kid. The kid is getting exactly what he wants. He has a role to play in this class. He has a place in the world, so to speak, and he's actually successful if you think about it, because now he's getting the attention he deserves. So rather than reprimanding the negative, which we're going to discuss, but rather than reprimanding the negative From for today's class, we're going to try totally to focus on the positive.
Won't that lead to sibling rivalry? All you do is compliment the good. And obviously, every kid's different. There's going to be kids that are better than others at things. Won't that lead to jealousy? Competition, etc. One of the things we have on the list to talk about is appropriate praise. When we're praising our children, we only praise the child and we never compare them to their siblings. For example, if a kid is being toilet trained, you never say, 'Now you're making it in the toilet, just like your big brother.' We never do that because we're not trying to build sibling rivalry. We're not saying, 'Wow, you got such good marks on your test.' Now you're like this kid. That would do that. But actually, children kind of naturally know that every kid is different, and the children actually want their siblings to get what they deserve. So it only creates sibling rivalry when we sort of pay attention to the sibling relationship. Kids are naturally happy for each other. So we just have to be careful how we praise.
We're gonna get to it a little bit more later. If a parent gives praise that's not authentic, the kid now knows it's not authentic, and that in a sense destroys future praise. So can a parent recover from that, or if a parent doesn't really realize that what they're doing and they're giving non-authentic praise? Is there a way that like is that you completely destroyed it or is there a way to recover from it? One of the things we learn about relationships is that they are exceptionally flexible. And what seems broken is just bent, and it can be restored. If you've been using inappropriate praise tactics, like being inauthentic, and you stop over a period of time, it naturally reverts back to its rightful position. I'll give you an example of this in the natural world. I don't know if you guys have read the articles recently, but there are satellites orbiting the Earth right now.
And they're able to take clearer pictures because there's so much less pollution in the air. All of a sudden, all that pollution is sort of dissipating into the atmosphere. It turns out that if you just stop behaving really poorly, life reverts back to normal. Same thing we see with the patterns of migration in animals. Whales were taking certain migratory patterns to avoid ships. And now they're switching back to their original patterns of migration. If we just stop behaving in a certain way Things will naturally revert back. So it's okay if you've made some mistakes, but you have to be aware to know that you're making the mistake. Okay, Okay. So now Another rule about praise: be liberal with your praise. Parents are sometimes concerned about spoiling their child with praise. Praise is not what spoils a child. Praise is not what spoils a child. If praise is authentic and appropriate, which we're going to learn what that means, how it's going to be timed appropriately and said appropriately. But if praise is timed well It's going to be an exceptionally powerful tool. And so, don't be concerned that you're over-praising your child.
It's a wonderful, beautiful thing to be able to say so many wonderful things to your children. It builds the relationship. It builds their confidence. It's like you can't have too much of a good thing in this case. But say there. The first rule of praise is as follows: the child has to understand what the goals are. If the child doesn't understand what the goals are, then the child cannot meet those goals. And even more to the point, if the child can't meet those goals, the parent can't praise those goals. So if a parent sends a child up to their room and says, "I want you to do a good job cleaning your room" What does a good job mean? A good job means different things to different people. I'll tell you what a good job looks like to my daughters. All this stuff is on the floor.
Half of it goes in the laundry room, even if it was just cleaned. Half of it goes right back into the drawers, just shoved in there. If I walk into the room, it may look clean, but if I open up the drawer, what's going to happen to me? Everything that they just shoved in the drawers is going to come piling out all over me. At that point, what am I going to do? I'm going to say, "I thought I told you to clean your room." Kid looks at you and says, "I did clean my room." And it may very well be that in their mind, they did, because the parent did not set clear goals. So the parent has to say, "I want you to go clean your room. I want clean laundry to be put away neatly in the shelves. I want dirty laundry and only dirty laundry to be put into the laundry bin so it could be washed. I want school supplies put away in the appropriate cabinet, and I would like your beds made. I'm going to come up in 15 minutes, and I'm going to see that these tasks were done."
This is a wonderful gift that you can give to your children. Because it actually, what's called, Because the child actually knows exactly what they're supposed to do, and now when the child does what they're supposed to do, we'll talk about what happens when they don't. But when the child does what they were supposed to do, now you can praise those goals clearly and unambiguously. I sent you to your room to put the dirty laundry away, to put the clean laundry away, to put your school supplies away, and to make your beds, and I see that you've done all of those things. And so that is great praise, because it lets the child know exactly which behaviors the parent was proud of. The child then takes that in. There's a success. They have a place. They feel valued and important. That builds their courage. They take that out into the world. So far so good.
Questions, comments, reactions. Aaron Goldstein. How do you build independence then? One second. Let's get the arm first, and then I'll come right back. You Shlomo. You probably might be going to be addressing this soon, so if you are, just you know, just it away. But In regards to praise, It's too much. I feel like there's too much. Did you just come on this second? I like. I've been here for a while. So one of the things we just said was, don't be worried about being liberal with your praise if it's authentic. You're good to go. If it's a friend, I know you said that But I'm saying, for example, let's say your kid is smart. He's a normal kid, not the number one kid in the class, but he's not an idiot either, right? Every single time he comes home from school, it's like, 'Yeah, good job, smart kid.' Positive reinforcement is a good thing.
But then what happens when this kid all of a sudden says, I've been being told by my mother for ten years that I'm really smart, right? And then he goes and he thinks he's gonna get into Harvard, but she doesn't. And then it devastates him. Because that's not good praise. That's not good praise. If your kids just getting a good mark on a test and you're saying good mark, smart kid, that's not great. That's not good praise at all. When you see we develop what praise is and knowing when to praise, you'll see that's not appropriate praise. Making a child believe that they can get into Harvard is not smart if they can't get into Harvard. It's not authentic. We'll see how that develops. Shlomo, I apologize about before. No problem. How do you teach independence if you're giving them step by step?
First of all, again, it really depends on the age. Sometimes kids, even though you think they should be independent already, sometimes by nine or ten years old, you would expect not to have to give them these step by step things. But there's a very good chance that you do need to at that age. In the exact way you want them to clean up their room. By the way, you need to do that with teenagers also sometimes, believe it or not. But then again, it's different strokes for different folks. Like, let's say now you're older and you have a job. So it's the job of a boss to spell out exactly what the task of the employee is. Because if the employee doesn't have a meaningful job description, how are they supposed to do it successfully? And then how are you supposed to reward their good behavior with praise? So really, at every stage, again, it has to be age appropriate. But that's actually what builds the independence, because let's say I'm just starting off; it's my first job. I'm in an entry-level position. I don't know if I can make it. There's a lot of uncertainty. Having a boss who really takes you under their wing and lets you know what you're doing well gives you the courage to actually now take that and become independent. So praise ought to be something that leads towards more independence.
By the way, we see that. We see that's what the research bears out. When someone praises their children, it actually leads to independence because it gives them courage. Okay, Let's go weiter. Now What we're looking for is to praise improvement. Improvement is different than success. Let's go back to something we said a couple of classes ago. Remember that we're not parenting perfection. We're parenting progress. We're parenting improvement, so the goal is not to say you've done perfectly. The goal is to say here's the growth that I see you doing. And so we're focused on praising success and not reprimanding failure. Let's take an example of this. Let's say your child is learning how to walk. Do you reprimand failure when the child falls?
Of course not. You have a little baby. They're learning how to walk. So what happens? They've taken a step or two. Then they fall. What's a parent's natural reaction? The baby took a step. The baby took two steps. Unbelievable! And the whole family goes around and they're hugging the child. What's the child's feeling in that moment? The child's feeling is, I accomplished something great. Now it's true that the child fell. But we don't pay attention to the failure. Because the positive praise will have a much greater effect than focusing on the negative behavior. On the fact that they ultimately failed, and so the rule is when it comes to praise versus criticism. Since praise is so much more powerful than criticism, we want to praise as much as possible without focusing at all on the negative, because ultimately the negative will go away by itself. For those of you that learn Alei Shor I think Nachi, you learned Alei Shor at some point. For those of you that learn Alei Shor, Volby speaks about this at length. The idea of just positive, and then the negative goes away by itself. This can be compared to somebody who's draining a swamp. Guys, there's two ways of draining a swamp.
One way is eucalyptus trees, and the other way is to take industrial-sized hoses and pour in tons of fresh water. Praise is fresh water. Ultimately, when you have a swamp full of fresh water, then you can drain the swamp. But you can't drain a swamp. If all there is swamp water So we have to focus on the praise as much as possible. Be careful here, because by default we naturally critique. When we get frustrated because the child is not obedient, we're naturally going to fall into criticism. So you have to get off your autopilot and start paying attention to the positive and training yourself to praise. Now we're going to deal with the tough issue that I'm sure at least some of you were thinking about. What happens if I have resistant D or disobedient children? I've been praising my child, but the child is resistant towards doing the right thing, and they're constantly disobedient. They're doing exactly the opposite of what I tell them. First of all, I would encourage you to check in. Are you really praising the child? A lot of parents think they're giving a lot of praise, but that might only be in their head.
The child may not actually be receiving as much praise as they should. We want ten positives at least. For every one negative, to create that awesome, powerful, positive environment in the home, positive parenting is going to do a much better job than negative parenting. So number one, check in with yourself. Am I really praising the child as much as I should be? Let's say I have been. Reprimanding the child might be in order. But remember, whenever you reprimand your child, that's a move. It's a big move, right? Because the reprimand dilutes the purity of the praise, right? The goal here is to be totally positive. So any time you bring in any negative, it dilutes the system. So the idea is that if you have a lot of positive and then you have one negative, that negative is going to be really powerful because it's going to be shocking to the system of the child.
And when it's shocking to the system of the child, so then that's like whoa, something big happened. So I'll give you an example of this. Yoch, I'll get to him one second. Have any of you guys ever heard of Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman Shlita? Some of you remember him from Dora Golding, maybe from back in the day. Yehuda, you remember him? Aaron, you remember him? Chevra, when anyone hears the name Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman, what's the first word that comes to mind? Yehuda, what's the first word that comes to mind? Kindness. He is the ultimate sweet, kind person. Yehuda, Aaron, have you ever seen him daven? He davens like a malach. You know how he shuddles like he's like a reed in the breeze. It's like mamish a malach. So I was in Rabbi Finkelman's seventh grade class And that was I had him for an entire year.
And Rabbi Finkelman was mamish the most positive rebbe in the world And the entire year it was just praise after praise. I can tell you even now I'm come up forty years old. I had him when I was in seventh grade. So what was I was twelve years old. It's a long time ago. Twice in the entire year He had to yell at the class. And you had to see the class when he yelled because the class was like Oh my God, what just happened? So we were so used to the positive that when the negative came, it was so powerful. If you're creating a positive home, then any negativity you bring in is going to be really bolate. It's going to be really obvious to the child, so use it carefully. Only use it when the praise isn't working. And then as soon as you use it, you see the child start to improve.
Double down right back on that praise. Bring all that praise in so that you can build the child back up because a reprimand can be hard to deal with. Now we have a question here. How do we establish the benchmark for what is a positive and what is a negative? For example, in the case of test scores, some people think an eighty is great, and some think it is not. The answer to that question depends on the child. Because an eighty for one child is different than an eighty for another child. This goes to the point Aram was making earlier. If your kid is getting an eighty on a test and he's normally getting sixties on the test, then an eighty is great. If he's getting nineties on the test and then he gets an eighty, it might not be so bad. Was this a particularly hard test? Is this in a subject where the child excels? But if your kid is constantly getting a ninety-five to a hundred on a math test and all of a sudden they get an eighty, what happened?
So before you criticize, let's Let's understand what happened here. Maybe the child didn't know that there was a test, or maybe he studied the wrong material. So it's important to be curious. But if you created a safe environment in the home, and the kid comes home with an eighty, and you know they're capable of getting much better than that, and you honestly, curiously ask them what happened, and they say, "I just totally didn't study for the test because I wanted to go out and play with my friends." That might be the opportunity now. I wouldn't jump to the critique, but if that's the opportunity for a critique, then that would be bad. Whereas for another child, it would be great. Does that make sense? But I'm saying more how do you establish the I mean. Because this is in case of tests, I think it's not to say I give the best example because it's sort of obvious what you know you average normally get. But I guess more of a younger thing: how do you figure out what's normal for them when they're four or five years old? Some kids that it's I guess it would probably be harder to not to say in tests, but it would be harder to sort of figure out what's normal for them and what's good for them. What means what they did that means that they actually tried hard.
So again, great question. What's interesting about it is, I think by four or five years old, you'll actually know them really well. And you'll know what they're good at and what they're not good at, and if you're paying attention, that is. So then you'll be able to really see, okay, this is what the kid is up to. Maybe a little bit harder when they're younger and they're just learning things, but by four or five, you're already gonna have a pretty good idea of what they're good at and what they're not good at. And then you gotta focus on each particular child as an individual. Okay. Good. Let's say there, Nachi. How, in the case of Rabbi, praising his daughters for doing what What Rabbi asked them to do in cleaning the room. How is that praising progress and not success? Because praise is, I see that you did what I asked you to do.
So that's a great question, right? Because let's say they put the laundry in the laundry room and they made their beds, but they just shoved everything into the closet, right? Because we're using praise as a technique, again, there is a place for something else. But because we're using praise as a technique, I'm not even going to pay attention to the fact that they did one of the things that they did wrong, and instead I'm going to create that positive environment by saying, 'I really appreciate that you made your beds and that you put the laundry away in the laundry room,' right? Remember that positive feeling is going to go a long way. But that's praising the success, not praising progress. They're like You praise that they successfully did what you asked them to do. Even if they did all of it, they did everything that you wanted them to.
And then you're praising the fact that they did it. That's praising success. So how is that? How could you praise progress in that case? I might say depending on the situation. Let's say yesterday they only made their beds and they didn't listen to anything else. So I might say, "Guys, we're headed in the right direction." Today it was making your beds and putting the laundry away. That recognizes the progress. And let's say you get to a point where they do it. They do that every day. We're getting to that. Because remember that praise has to be on a spectrum, right? I'm not. It's very funny When my kids are learning how to walk. I have the same joke with all of them, and it's a bad joke. It's why I'm a rebbe, right? It's not as bad as some of the puns I told you earlier, but it's a bad joke.
I took thousands of steps today, and no one said that I was doing a good job. And guys, it's true, I managed thousands of steps, and Baruch Hashem today I did not fall once. But when I'm walking down the street, my friends are not sitting there clapping. Oh man, look at Berg go. He's just walking away. The reason is because it's no longer appropriate. Praise has to jump up incrementally so that it meets the next target. The kid already feels safe walking, so Mechelberg is obviously a tremendous walker. At least as good, if not better, than most, and for sure better than Tani. We all knew where that joke was going. I'm sure that Tani can play floor hockey, but everybody knows that's not a real sport. Michal is already dunking over him. So I'm just saying if you know what I'm saying. The Simcha get to your question in a second. I'm speaking nonsense now. The idea is this: I'm not praising Michal for walking anymore, but now that he's in the process of being toilet trained, we're praising that, right? As my daughter pointed out in her Bar Mitzvah speech, we're so proud of Michal because he's going in the area that's near the toilet.
That's what we're up to. Not yet in the toilet. That's already all you know. That would be a big deal. But in the area that's near the toilet is a good praise. So it's progress. Simcha. Going back to the example we turned up before, you have a kid that does well in school. He's doing well in tests, and then he just stops studying because he wants to hang out with his friends. You're praising him all the times he's doing well, and then you reprimand him for not studying. Is there a play? Is there a time when consequences come in? This might not be a different year. How would Rabbi navigate that? So for sure, again, praise does not mean that there's not consequences to a child's actions. It's just that in the context, remember that we're not jumping to the consequence. We're not jumping to the criticism. A consequence is not necessarily a criticism. Consequence could be something like, look, you were supposed to study your homework. You know you were supposed to do your homework. Let's say at four o'clock, at six o'clock, all your friends are outside playing. While at four o'clock you were playing on your Xbox or your Nintendo sixty four or whatever it is your crazy kids are playing today. I don't know. And so I can't even say Fortnite anymore.
That's dating myself. Nobody plays Fortnite. Whatever it is, you're playing some horrific game that involves murdering people. Let's say your kid is playing Grand Theft Auto. A lot of things have hopefully gone wrong in your life if your kid is playing Grand Theft Auto. But let's say your kid is playing GTA. Look how relevant I am. I even know the initials. So now your kid is playing GTA at four o'clock in the afternoon. Your fifth grader is playing GTA. You lunatic parent. And now they want to go play with their friends, but they didn't do their homework. So a consequence would be: you can't go to play with your friends right now because you signed. You know you have homework to do. That's a good consequence, but the praise would come immediately after they did their homework and say "I really see that you did your homework, and I could even see that it was hard for you because you were really disappointed that you wanted to go play with your friends." So praise and consequences are not necessarily a contradiction.
Okay, Let's go. Yehuda. Sorry. If a you're saying with the kid that usually gets 60s and he gets an 80 And what's a way to say that the 80s is like a hard line to go on that you're telling him you did really well compared to what you usually do, but 80 is not the benchmark. Well But let's ask ourselves a question. Let's maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but let's ask ourselves a question. Maybe eighty is the benchmark. It really depends on the kid. So you have to know. In other words, you're right. If the kid is really capable of doing better than this, of course, it's not the benchmark. But there are kids for whom this is legitimately the best that they can do. As it's funny because when I was doing my master's degree in education.
T four. When I was doing my master's degree in education, I'll just say it twice, just in case people weren't paying attention. And I got my master's in special ed, which I tell people I use every single day. So when I was doing my master's degree in education, one of the first classes that I ever took is what I ever learned from the teacher was what defines success in a classroom. And the interesting thing when you're speaking specifically about special ed is, let's say you're teaching a class of learning disabled kids, right? So we always think that success is getting a ninety on the test. Maybe it's not. Maybe we should redefine success, and then the kid is successful. There's two ways of getting success. One is establishing the benchmark for success and then challenging the child to meet that mark. The other is lowering the mark to where it's appropriate for the child. At first, when I heard that, it was very shocking to me because I was like, 'You're just selling these kids out.' But then I thought about it a little bit more, and I'm like, 'You're really not selling these kids out. You're doing what's absolutely appropriate for them.' A test should be appropriate for the kid that's taking it.
So maybe eighty is a great mark for this kid. That's number one. But let's assume you're right. Let's assume eighty is not the benchmark. Let's assume he's capable of doing more. Because I assume that's your follow-up question. If the kid is capable of doing more And again, I'm not saying this is the only parenting strategy. But if we're using praise as a parenting strategy, then it's valuable to just say, 'Great job on that eighty.' And then the kid is going to enjoy that praise and the natural enjoyment that they get. He's going to put in the effort next time naturally towards building it up, even without you saying anything, because the positivity is so great. That's why when we have those rebbeim that really are positive with us, their words go such a long way with us because we feel like we can trust them. So don't worry about saying you got an eighty this time. Let's get a ninety next time. In fact, if you do that, you're going to diminish the praise. Just be authentically proud of the child that he got that eighty. They're baderik. That's a beautiful thing.
We have a lot to cover, so I think I'm going to suspend questions for a couple of minutes so I can get through a bunch of things at once, and then I'll open it up to questions again. Let's say the child still doesn't improve after you reprimanded the child. Because reprimanding a child is a parenting technique. So now you've reprimanded the child. Maybe you've done it two or three times, and the child continues to show no sign of improvement. Here's a bad parenting strategy. Don't ratchet up the reprimanding because you think that's going to work better. If something is proving itself not to work, don't do more of it. So your child is you were praising your child. Let's say you were praising your child and the child was disobedient. You reprimanded the child. The child continues to be disobedient. You've now reprimanded the child a number of times. The child continues to be disobedient. So don't double down on reprimanding the child. Now I've told the child that it's not a good thing, and now I'm going to send them to their room. I've sent them to their room, and now I'm going to ground them. I've grounded them, and now I'm going to ratchet it up.
You're not getting anywhere with the child. You're not actually making a difference at that point, because the kid himself doesn't necessarily value what you are saying to him. So there are other things that you can do. To make a difference to this child, what are some of the things you can do? Number one Reevaluate the motivational techniques that you're using. Maybe praise isn't working. Maybe reprimanding isn't working. But there's a whole slew of other things that we're going to learn about that you can do. Number two, examine your relationship with the child. Is my relationship built on a power struggle? Am I trying to control my child? Is my child trying to control me? Do I need some space from this child? Does this child need more independence from me? Are the child's needs being satisfied? Meaning, maybe there's another need that we're not necessarily aware of that the child hasn't been getting met. So maybe it's a social need, or maybe it's a financial need.
The child is embarrassed because he's the only one that's not getting a he's the only one that's not being able to go out to eat with all of his friends. So there's a lot that you can do to examine the things that are peripheral for the child, right? It may not be focused on the actual obedience, because maybe sometimes there's other relationship issues that are going on, and if there are relationship issues, then stop what you're doing and work towards restoring the relationship. Sometimes what happens is that we can lose focus on the issue at hand by focusing on their negative behavior. If the issue is the relationship, focus on the relationship. Does that make sense? The relate the bad behavior is not our issue right now. The issue is the relationship. If you solve the relationship, the child will become obedient. In that case.
Okay. Let's get into what praise looks like, and this is going to take us for the last couple of minutes. Number one. Praise specifics. Be very specific about what you're praising the child for, because that lets the child know exactly what you value. Make sure to continue to set the bar higher when it's appropriate. Meaning, first I praise the child for taking five steps, but then if the child is taking five steps continuously, that's not praise for the child anymore. You have to ratchet it up. Now we're proud when the child takes ten steps. The same thing when it comes to cleaning their room, like we spoke about before. If the baseline is that they make their bed, don't praise them for making their bed if they've done it already consistently. Now step it up. You've made your bed. Now we're working on making sure your closets are clean. So always step it up when appropriate. Specificity conveys sincerity. And what's critical is that the praise be sincere.
If you're specific in your praise, then the child will respond to that because they'll see the authenticity. My parent took the time to notice exactly what I did. That is meaningful to the child, even if they don't know how to say that. Trust me, it's meaningful to them. Praise happens immediately. The child feels most proud right after their performance, and that's where they have the greatest need. For that praise to come in and confirm for them, hey, you did a great job. So if the praise happens a week later, the feeling of accomplishment has already worn off. I'm not saying it's not valuable a week later. I'm just saying it's not as good as if you can get it right away. Your kid was in a play. They come off the stage. You say to them, 'Wow, you said your lines with such passion.' I noticed that you didn't just repeat the lines you had. You didn't just memorize them, but you really liked you. You convinced the audience that you were this character again, assuming that that's actually authentic.
That would be great praise because the child is proud of what they've just accomplished, and the specificity allows them to know my parent actually valued what I did. Remember that praise is a motivator for overcoming hardships to meet a goal. The child ultimately has to learn to rely on their inner drive, right? So if they're constantly looking for praise, this goes to Shlomo's point earlier about independence. Then they have not really gotten to that inner drive. So remember, you praise until you don't need to praise anymore. Now, at some point you have to stop praising that aspect so that the child can dig deep from within. And actually choose to do it. So you got to know when your praise is appropriate. But once you've hit that benchmark, and now the kid is he got it, move on. It's not the time to praise that thing anymore. Now the child has to learn that sense of independence. Let's talk for a couple of minutes about delivering praise. Because how we deliver praise is critical. First of all, praise is not only verbal. It's also with gestures. So physical touch When appropriate
Can be a really powerful way of enhancing the praise. So I haven't just said to my son that he's done a good job, but I put my arm around him at the same time. That soft gesture of putting your arm around the child can make a child feel really loved. Tell the child how the child's action made you, the parent, feel. And why it made you feel that way. I was so proud of you because you showed responsibility. So it tells the child the feeling that the parent had. And why the parent had that feeling. So if you're following, it would go like this. Your child did a great job. You come in with the praise right away. If your child would appreciate the physical touch, you've got your arm around the child and you say, "I'm really proud of you that you said those lines on the stage with such passion. You really conveyed your message to the audience. I felt so proud that you took the responsibility. I'm just making something up, right? To actually practice this in such a way that you were able to get such a great performance. That would be an amazing type of praise."
It hits all the marks. Again, don't exaggerate. Don't make the praise overdone. Don't talk about it for twenty minutes because if you're talking about it for twenty minutes, at some point the child is gonna say, "Okay, like this is a joke." Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds of praise. After that, you're done. Don't overdo it. And don't exaggerate, because the child will know when you're exaggerating. If you tell your child after they painted something, "This belongs in the Louvre." It is the next Mona Lisa. I just have to get some of you back. So don't exaggerate praise because that diminishes the whole point of what you're trying to do. You're trying to give the child real courage. Children can smell that exaggeration a mile away. It don't do nothing for them. And last but not least, let's talk about some of the benefits of praise. And why it's so important to have an attitude in your family where we're constantly praising. Number one
Praise promotes success by creating images of past success and transferring them over to the next time the child has to perform. They recall the image of previous successes. So when you praise something, it allows the child to draw on that for the future. So they get the courage from the past, and that gives them the capacity to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability as they're moving forward. Sometimes praise can even be a visualization tool to promote future success. So one of the things you can do for your child is say You did great, and I know you're going to do great again next time. And that's a great way of doing it because now the child says, Wow, my parent authentically cared. They gave me real praise. They put their arm around me. They were specific in their praise. They told me the way it made them feel and why it made them feel that way. And they visualized it towards the future. When you as the parent visualize it, the child will visualize it as well, and that'll allow them to draw that courage into the future.
Praise creates a positive atmosphere. Anytime we criticize, anytime we penalize, that by definition, even if it's appropriate, will create a more negative, unsafe environment. So use your negativity carefully. That's your atom bomb. So be careful how you use it. You want to have much more praise because you want a positive environment in the home. The positive environment in the home, in an environment of mutual respect, the child will want to do what you want them to do. Here's another benefit of praise. Praise makes the child feel like they're in control. This goes back to Shlomo Meisel's point about independence. We want our children to feel like they are in control of their destiny because that gives them the feeling of independence. So the child wants to be praised, so they're going to make an effort to behave in a way that earns them that praise. This puts the child in the driver's seat. They establish an identity and their own independence. Another thing, praise moves a child from obedience to motivation.
And here's why that's important Because motivation, or what some of us refer to as inspiration, means that I do it even when I don't want to. Praising the child makes them feel like, "Ugh, I really don't want to go to school today and work hard in school, but the praise that I'm going to get will make this worth it." So even when they wouldn't necessarily be obedient, they're still going to be motivated and inspired because praise is going to get them there. So praise actually gives the capacity for the child to be authentically motivated. Does your child appreciate the delivery of the praise? I'll give you a classic. You know that Rebbe Nachi. You for sure know that Rebbe. You know that Rebbe that loves to give knips. He loves to like pinch your cheeks. Nachi, I don't know why I know that you know that Rebbe. Who do you also know that Rebbe? I can see Shuki. You know that Rebbe.
Are you saying that I have fat cheeks? It wasn't a comment about you at all. It was just a comment that I feel like you've been in educational institutions where that third grade Rebbe existed and why he teaches third grade in every single school across the entire country, I have no idea. But every, for certain people, they just I don't know. We all had that Rebbe. I had that Rebbe too. So the Rebbe might really enjoy giving you that knach on the cheek. Kids hate it. Not all kids, but some kids hate it. So if you're giving the praise with the pinching of the cheek, the child's actually like, the Rebbe is going to do that to me again. I hate it when the Rebbe does that to me. That's not good praise. Or here's another one: be careful with the words that you use. Words mean different things to different people. So for some people, they love it when their Rebbe calls them tzaddik.
Tzaddik, you're doing great, and the word tzaddik could be very powerful. For some people, the word tzaddik may have negative connotations. You have to know what that means. Different words mean different things to different people. For some people, when they hear tzaddik, they think you're exaggerating because I am definitely not a tzaddik. In Tanya, we say like Chabadnikim say you're a striving bainani, right? No Chabadnik obviously ever says that. For those of you that understand what that means, right? No Chabadnik ever says that. But for some people, when they feel like their rebbe is calling them a tzaddik, it doesn't feel very nice for them. Make sure that your praise is appropriate for the person that you're saying it to. Earlier, Aaron Goldstein asked a question on the chat. Now I'm going to address the question. He said, "Can you use a slight reprimand to offset and increase a praise or a compliment?" So don't say the following. Last test you failed, and look how much better you did.
Don't say that. Because that just reminds the child of the fact that they failed the test last time. So even though you may think it's increasing the positive, it's actually not. Just stay with the positive thing that the child did. Forget the negative. We're trying to go a hundred percent positive, hundred percent praise to give a stronger environment. Simcha, give me one second. I'm just gonna finish this up and then I'll get to you. Don't compare your children to other children that we spoke about already. Don't make light of the task. That's a classic. Kid cleans up their room. They do it well. The parent walks in and goes, 'see how easy that is.' It's not so hard to clean your room, right? That's belittling the child, right? Don't do that. Praise the child. The kid will want more praise. They'll do it again. But if you say, 'Look how easy that is,' first of all, it may not be easy, right? Some kids have real difficulties with these things, right? They may have They may need occupational therapy or physical therapy. It may not be easy for a kid to clean their room. So don't make light of it. But even if it is easy for them to clean their room, you don't have to point it out and make it negative. They did a good thing. Just be positive. Give them that praise. Another one.
Tell the truth when you're recognizing the positive. Tell the truth, and that can be hard sometimes because you see progress. It may take some creativity to actually get to the stage where you're like, okay, this is the true thing that I can say. But remember, kids can smell a rat a mile away. If you're lying They know, and it doesn't feel good for them. Simcha Shrone. I was a little confused by this. Maybe everybody could clarify it. If your child just loves the praise so much, and they're gonna do these things because they want to get the praise, how is that independence? And that's what Salma is asking, I think. But if the kid's just doing it to get the praise because they want you to, they want the parents to praise them, why is that independence? What happens when the parent is not there to praise the child?
And no one's gonna praise them? Why is that independence? Again, because the point is, you're not praising the child. Every minute of the time. In other words, I'm not praising Michal anymore for walking because he can do it already. Now he's learned that he wants to walk. Initially, he needed that praise to help him get over the discomfort. Now he doesn't need that praise anymore. When the child actually tastes success, the praise is what got them to the stage of success. Once the success is the internal drive, then you don't need the praise anymore. So at that point, they're not doing it for the praise. They're doing it for the independence. For the inner will that they have. Rabosai, I want to wish you a wonderful shadow.
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