A young college student said this powerful statement, "Praise is the new criticism," on a CBC special last night on Hyper Parenting. He went on to say that behind every praise is the expectation that the behavior will be repeated. I’ve taught for years that we have to be very careful with praise. This young man bluntly stated the damage that praise can do.
The young man who said this was in a support group for other students who are suffering from debilitating anxiety. The participants said that their parents’ intense parenting left them feeling incredible, often unbearable pressure to succeed. A counselor said that whereas a decade or two ago students used to come for counseling because of romantic problems, now they are coming in droves to deal with their anxiety and to get relief from the internal pressure that they don’t know how to escape.
To read more about this important topic, I recommend you check out Carl Honore’s Under Pressure , and Madeline Levine’s The Price of Privilege. Both authors were featured in this powerful documentary. I’d read both of their books before, and highly recommend both books to any parent who wants to avoid raising kids who suffer from anxiety.
Note: other studies have shown anxiety levels in children nowadays to be at levels previously only seen in wartime. (I believe they are referring to large scale World Wars, or combat zones. I do not mean to downplay the anxiety levels of the many Americans and Canadians whose family members are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan). Clearly it isn’t just our college students who are suffering from anxiety.
A young woman in the group said that her parents raised her to believe that she could do anything. That sounds great, but the message she received was that she should do something amazing . Instead of feeling free to do whatever she wanted, she felt pressure to perform and excel. Her parents micro management of her life meant that she felt she owed them and had to do something amazing, or risk devastating them with disappointment. No surprise that she felt paralyzed and was struggling to cope.
The idea that parents need to look after our own needs is not a new one. However, in this age of hyper parenting, the importance of looking after our own ambitions and having a full and exciting life ourselves, has become crucial for our children’s success. Instead of telling our kids that they can be whatever they want, and hovering over them to try to ensure that everything is perfect in their lives, we need to back off, let them live their lives, and focus more on being whoever we want to be! That is a much more powerful gift for our children than living vicariously through them.
Ironically, we also are depriving our children of the very challenges they need to become resilient. Anne Masten, a professor from The University of Minnesota, is one of the many people who has studied resilience in children. Her work shows that if we successfully protect our children from virtually all adversity, we will raise children who can’t cope.
A woman in her late twenties was a perfect example of this fact. Although she had no problems getting great jobs, she just couldn’t keep them. She’d graduated top of her class and i n five years she had been let go five times. At the time of the show she was couch surfing, having quit a $90,000 a year job recently to start a now-failed business. Her attitude continually got her into conflict, and she felt superior to everyone, including her bosses. If she had experienced more adversity when she was younger, she would have learned better coping skills and been spared the unnecessarily rocky road she is now on.
Another mom featured in the documentary was talking about how lost she and her husband were going to be now that her son was moving away. While I get that it will be a major transition when my first child leaves home in 5 years, I am already planning for the things I will do when the kids aren’t here. I plan to travel and get more deeply involved in hobbies and non-kid related community activities.
Note, I said more involved. I do have past times now that are completely for me, that nurture and sustain me and validate that my interests are important too. Sometimes because these activities take me away for a weekend, the kids have to fend for themselves a bit, which at 10 and 13 isn’t much of a hardship. I’ve even missed the occasional event. I’m devoted to my children, and they know that, and I have a life as well. I want the message my kids receive to be that I take care of my emotional needs, and that they don’t have to be anything or do anything to complete me.
Parenting is an extremely tough job at times. With so many other parents hyper parenting, it can seem like the right thing to do. However, if you think of the anxious students, or the almost unemployable, over-entitled young woman, it is easier to go against the tide. Perhaps soon the pendulum will swing back to saner parenting. Until then, it’s worth taking a step back every once in awhile to examine if you are hyper parenting, and setting you and your child up for heartache later.
Interesting, thought-provoking post that just happens to dovetail with my personal theories! Praise as criticism is nothing new – I myself was a victim of it as a child – but I’ll agree that it’s definitely more of a hazard these days.
I do, however, take issue with one passage: “Other studies have shown anxiety levels in children nowadays to be at levels previously only seen in wartime!” As a military family, we can tell you that this is indeed wartime. Maybe the rest of the country forgets, but with a father in Afghanistan, we can’t possibly.
9to5to9´s last blog ..The weeper in Room 14
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Jacqueline Green Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 7:53 am
Thanks for your comments. Point well taken about us being in wartime. Thanks for the reminder, and my prayers go out to you.
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I enjoyed this article. I am in awe of the author going away for the weekend! I think our mainstream society is seen as being very competitive by many parents who feel they would be letting their children down if they didn’t pressurize them to succeed. Pressure seems the only option I guess. Children want so much to please their parents that the fall-out of too much pressure can be hard to spot or easy to dismiss by parents. I would like to see parents and teachers looking beneath surface success to what’s often the reality of the situation.
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Jacqueline Green Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 8:04 am
Thanks Leila for your comments! Great point about looking below the surface of success to see how our children are handling the pressure. Success is not always worth the cost, especially if the cost is a loss of mental health and happiness.
For me, going away occasionally and doing something that stimulates and/or nurtures me, is one of the ways I keep my well full for my children. I believe that each parent brings different gifts to our children, and I know that one of mine is showing my kids that it is okay to still be a person in my own right.
If you feel excited at the thought of a weekend away, I encourage you to give yourself and your kids the gift of going. When you get home you can evaluate whether it was worth it. If it was, it could become a delightful tradition in your family.
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Jacqueline, What you are talking about goes way beyond parenting. It is the same phenomenon that occurs in all relationships – boss/employee, husband/wife, and even among friends. We can easily feel as if so much is expected of us by anyone we are close to who focuses a bit too much on our success.
Some people become very fearful if their partner praises them too much because they feel whatever they did right this one time will become expected again and again. Relationships require a delicate balance of praise and also a bit a criticism too.
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Jacqueline Green Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 8:34 am
As always Erica, I appreciate your wise comments. Indeed, praise can be used, intentionally or not, as a manipulator by people in any relationship, not just in parenting. I plan to write a follow up post next on what to do instead of praise, and I’d love to hear what advise you give your clients. Thanks for sharing!
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Awesome post! Very informative! You hit on so many great points here. The one that resonated the most with me was this: “I want the message my kids receive to be that I take care of my emotional needs, and that they don’t have to be anything or do anything to complete me.” This is something that my wife and I have made a HUGE priority in our relationship and parenting as well. I believe this is very important.
Kevin M.´s last blog ..Silly Saturday – Bad day at the office
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Jacqueline Green Reply:
May 31st, 2010 at 8:49 am
Thanks Kevin for your comments. I appreciate you sharing that you and your wife have made it a priority to look after your own emotional needs so that your children don’t have to. You will all reap the benefits of this powerful decision.
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Hey Jacqueline
Wow.. great article!!
I can remember several articles about this topic emerging from Mothering Mag about 20 years ago.. which were warning parents to be aware of how praising children for every little thing, and over doing it had the potential for needing ‘approval’ externally driven, instead of an ‘inside job’.
As my kids have grown up, I have seen huge shifts in parenting. I thought that there were hovering parents many years ago, and pressure then, but it is hardly a blip compared to what is going on today.
Thank you for bringing out this awareness.. so that more parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles can support the kids into becoming who THEY want to be, without the external pressure to be who WE want them to be.
Peace and light
EJ Shames
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I so appreciate this article! You are preaching to the choir about concerns with parents trying to fulfill their lost dreams through their children. And don’t get me started on how overscheduled kids are today between school, sports practices, music lessons, yada, yada, yada.
My daughter has a pretty strong sense of herself, yet what is challenging for her mother and I, is that she focuses and prioritizes so much more on her social life to the exclusion of school life. On the one hand, I was a geek in school and am grateful that she can socialize and have friends. On the other, she DOES need to become independent. Very challenging to trust that it will all work out well.
Thanks again for the thought provoking post.
Adam
Dr. Adam Sheck´s last blog ..Ever Wonder, “Why Are They Together?”
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All I can add here Jacqueline is thank God I am not a Parent in this day and age. I’m sure I would get arrested for Child abuse. When I was young asking your parent for money to spend was met with “Getta Job” We have so much material substance that parenting has morphed into a managing children instead of teaching and setting examples for their lives.
Nelson´s last blog ..“Top Cat Club”
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