Being self-directed – Touch The Future

One of the things that really frighten me is the way we’ve become in this world thinking that the only way a child would try anything new is if we praise them for every single solitary thing they do. I’m stunned when I’m in the grocery store and the mother asks the child to get a loaf of bread, he gets it and she says good job. What in the world is good about that? There’s nothing good about that. He got you the loaf of bread. You can say thanks. But what happens immediately when we do that, however well-meaning we think it might be, the child becomes dependent upon us to know that they’ve done something worthwhile.

Things to think about

Have you read any of the research around praise? Why do you think it has become so common in today’s world?
What was your response the last time a child asked you to look at their art?
Do you believe that children will be the kind of people we want in this world if we do not reward or praise them for the things we like and if we do not punish them for the things we don’t like?
Have you experienced discomfort from being praised?
Do you feel like you have an internal compass for yourself? If so, how did it get there? If not, why?

Highlights from Playful Wisdom
by Michael Mendizza featuring Bev Bos and Joseph Chilton Pearce

Play, is a metaphor for life. Playfulness implies two things: you are lovable and safe. These two requirements are essential prerequisites for real learning to take place, and that dynamic-reciprocal learning unfolds as play. “Play is learning, whether as a baby in arms or as a theoretical physicist,” David Bohm, protégé of Einstein, shared in a conversation years ago. Play is the third phase of what Joseph Chilton Pearce describes as the “Cycle of Competence:” first, roughing in a new possibility; second, repetition to establish the pattern; and third, variation. With trust, affection and their implied safety, playfulness moves steadily and expansively as an exploration of variation and novelty, imagining, surprising, testing, safely risking—failing is not a failure but an integral part of learning itself, feedback and adaptation. All this, every second, is taking place in the state of authentic play, not to be confused with culture’s win-lose, competitive-comparisons we call games and the vast majority of what takes place in the conditioning we call schooling.

One of the things that I want for children more than anything else in the world is to be self-directed, self-evaluators. To be able to look at what they’ve done and to wonder about it. To be either dissatisfied or satisfied to try it again. One of the things that really frighten me is the way we’ve become in this world thinking that the only way a child would try anything new is if we praise them for every single solitary thing they do. I’m stunned when I’m in the grocery store and the mother asks the child to get a loaf of bread, he gets it and she says good job. What in the world is good about that? There’s nothing good about that. He got you the loaf of bread. You can say thanks.

But what happens immediately when we do that, however well-meaning we think it might be, the child becomes dependent upon us to know that they’ve done something worthwhile. I want them to depend upon themselves. It’s so clear to me that it doesn’t assist the child at all if we praise them. They become dependent upon us. I have to say this, a generation ago, my mother never praised us. I’m sure she said thank you, but she never praised us for anything. I didn’t praise my children. It’s a new thing. I think what it is we establish environments that are not child centered. They haven’t paid any attention to kids. They are there to please adults. And then in order to get kids to do anything we have to praise them because otherwise they’re not interested in any of this. So they become, in this horrible way, they become dependent upon us. People say well what if a child shows you a piece of art and they say look?

What we need to do is do exactly what the child says. The kid didn’t say look and make stupid comments, to say something really dumb, what if they said look, you need to look, you need to give all the energy that you have to just that. If a kid says listen, you need to listen. And if the kid doesn’t say anything, hang around, keep them company, be hospitable. I wandered for a long time why in every workshop when people would say oh Beth, you are so wonderful, why I was so uncomfortable. But then when you start looking at it, I know I’m not wonderful. Sometimes I’m tired. Sometimes I’m crabby. Sometimes I know I haven’t done the very best job that I could at something. I could have done it a little bit better. Maybe I feared in some way at school or something. So I have to take the time to self-evaluate and to look at what I do. Nobody can do that for me and it’s especially difficult when people think you’re so wonderful. You can’t be yourself. You can’t be yourself. And I think it must be just horrible for a child to grow up in a world where that’s the way it is.