100 Ways to Say "Well Done"!

We all enjoy praise and it is recognised as an effective method to motivate students.  However, in the times of Skinnerian psychology, the reward/punishment approach to behaviour modification, there was an emphasis on positive reinforcement as a method to sculpt children’s behaviour.  Of course, it’s hard not to feel this way, who doesn’t like to be praised?

The emphasis on praise has led to the ‘every one’s a winner’ approach to motivating children, whether that be in school or in sport.  This tactic has back fired on a lot of fronts least of all in fostering enthusiasm – ‘why try if I get a trophy anyway’ and, what’s more the trophy means nothing!

Studies in business conducted by Emily Heaphy and Marcial Losada in 2013 looked at the effectiveness of praise and criticism.  They found that the optimal ratio was 5.6:1, that is almost six occasions where the staff were prise for every piece of critical feedback.  The low end had a ratio of 0.36:1 a very negative environment.

You do need to provide ‘negative’ feedback to correct behaviour, how will they learn without it but it must be a criticism of their actions, what they do.  Never about what you think they are, for the students with histories of abuse and neglect and the resulting toxic shame, any negative description of what ‘they are’ only reinforces their poor sense of self.

There are times when it is impossible to provide any positive feedback.  When I first started to work with these disabled kids the idea was you had to provide at least four positive comments before you could make a negative one.  Teachers being assessed had to maintain this 4:1 ratio.  I have seen teachers, placed in front of an ‘out of control’ class desperately trying to find something positive to say let alone keep up the prescribed ratio!  Children will see any praise at this time as disingenuous and the teacher will lose their credibility!  Sometimes you have to get them quiet enough they will provide a genuine reason to praise them.

It becomes obvious that praise has some value but research has shown that the value is what you praise and what you criticise.  When you praise the child for ‘what they are’ saying things like, you’re very clever, you are a natural, you find this work very easy, etc.; there is plenty of evidence that this has a negative effect.  Children praised for ‘what they are’ will lack motivation and lose interest in the tasks and have their grades actually fall.  Most dangerous is to tell them they are very clever.

The praise should be directed at their effort and their attempts to complete tasks.  Things like ‘I can see you have made a good effort in doing those maths problems’ or ‘that work is really good, I can see how much you have improved your maths ability’.  If they think they are getting better they will keep on trying!

A more detailed description of this work is covered in a previous Newsletter on Praise found in the blog for September 12 2018.

Finally, there are a very powerful group of students who have been so rejected they view any type of praise as suspicious, they see it as an attempt to manipulate them.  For these kids just consistently praise them for the right thing without expecting any positive feedback and they will eventually change their attitude as long as you hang in.  Remember it has taken years of negative reinforcement to get them to the toxic sense of self they present, it will take a significant amount of persistence to change that position.

So, it is important to choose your words carefully.  The following are some sentence starters that might help: