Remember to acknowledge only when you mean it, and not every time you notice a change for the better. I emphasize this because child rearing went terribly awry in the praise department with our kids, turning a powerful necessity into something so cheapened it became inauthentic and perhaps even destructive. Have you ever wondered whether the past 30 years’ emphasis on robotically praising our kids has actually been good for them? And have you considered that there might be a link between rote, reflexive adult praise, and the proliferation of a harsh reality–TV shows laced with “brutally honest criticism,” as well as the ever–edgy tone of the second family? I believe these 21st century phenomena of “mean “might in part be a manifestation of our decades-long love affair with praise.
For a while, I and others in the child-rearing world have been sensing that the self-esteem movement parentheses (which began in the sixties and seventies after the discovery of family violence and hidden abuse behind closed doors) was a profoundly important contribution to understanding and ensuring the safety of our children. But by the nineties it had gone way too far and created unintended consequences. Three decades after its “discovery,” boomers, post–boomers, and now the free–est generation have come to consider continuous praise a staple of life and a necessary precondition for work to be done.
Ron Taffel – Childhood Unbound p.160
The Sea Is Not Full 