Question 1
By saying that “Good Job” is sugar-coated control, Kohn(2001) means that praising a child for doing something good entices the child to do what we want rather than what benefits him/or her. Kohn says that the method may be effective for a while, but it does not help the child to become a good or creative person. He says that children are hungry for the parent’s approval. However, he warns that the parents should avoid exploiting our kids to make our lives easier. Instead, parents should engage their children in meaningful conversations that help them understand different things such how their actions affect other people. Such an approach will meet their emotional needs and help them become considerate people.
Question 2
When Kohn (2001) says that grown-ups working with kids create “praise junkies,” he is trying to say that the children will heavily depend on the approval of the adults rather than being able to make their judgments. The children will be more insecure, and they heavily depend on the praises from the adults to achieve something. They will be doing things to please the adults rather than for their benefits. According to Kohn (2001), a child who is lavishly praised for doing something normally abandons an idea as soon as an adult disagrees with it.
Question 3
According to Kohn (2001), the more we reward children for sharing or performing, the more they lose interest in what they had to do. According to Kohn, research has shown that kids who were often praised for being generous appeared less generous on a daily basis compared to other kids. The research, therefore, shows that rewarding a child may not necessarily improve his or her performance. Instead, the child may end up performing poorly.
Question 4
According to Kohn (2001), praise motivates children. The only problem is that it motivates them to earn more praises than being dedicated to the task that they had to perform that attracted the praises.
Question 5
According to Kohn (2001), there are at least two appropriate responses. The first response is to say what you saw. For instance, if a child shares food or something else with his or her friend, then, you may draw the child’s attention to the outcome of his action: “take a look at Moses’ face! He appears very happy now that you have given him something to eat.” The second response is to talk less and ask more. For instance, if a child draws a picture, you can ask him what he likes most about it or how he figured out about the right size of the picture. The third response is to keep quiet and allow the child to take control of what he is doing if it is not a bad thing.
References
Kohn, A. (2001). Five reasons to stop saying “good job.” Retrieved from
