Praise or 'Constructive Feedback'

How much praise is good praise before it becomes silly? Someone I know gives her children 'constructive feedback' - yes, she uses these big words on her three kids, who are between 9 and 16.  She is disappointed that they now tend to ignore her because ....



Her kids tell her what is the use because she would find fault with anything they did anyway! She explains to her kids that she is providing feedback on areas that could be improved and is not necessary to highlight the good areas all the time.

My friend is applying her well practiced office skills and dialogue on her kids.

I am sorry for the kids. But then again my boys are not really listening to me too. They prefer to play with their toys rather than read. Or play computer games.

But I know that praise works. Praise that is given selectively and carefully. My younger son, who is 6, laid the table today and read a story which is one page long. I praised him and he was so happy, the look of content.

I looked through the Internet and read some books. Here  i think sums up the different views:

We don’t need to praise our children for everything they do. We don’t need to continually reward our children or tell them how smart and talented they are. Actually, telling our children how smart and talented they it can create the opposite. It can make our children afraid to attempt new things, afraid of failure, afraid they won’t meet everyone’s expectations.  Research suggest that when we praise, it’s best for the praise to be related to the effort our children made. For praise to be effective, it also needs to be specific and sincere.

Praise is important for self esteem and building confidence but not too much and should be targeted.

It would be great to hear from the parents.