Does this conversation sound familiar, perhaps something you've heard recently along the sidelines of your child's soccer game?
Parent #1: Look at my kid go. What a great soccer player. (Said as the child runs down the soccer field.)
Parent #2: That's great. My daughter not only plays soccer but also is becoming quite a mathematician. She's going to attend math camp this summer, and her teacher says she's really great at it.
In today's world, conversations between parents that involve bragging are all-too-common. In the hothouse environment of many private schools, parents may often become competitive with each other, particularly as their kids face standardized tests and college admissions. Every parent wants his or her kids to feel successful and happy. However, there are some downsides to bragging, and experts believe that this type of behavior can also have a negative effect on children.
Why Parents Brag
It's only natural to feel positive about one's kids. However, in today's hypercompetitive environment, parents often face particular challenges that may make them feel the need to engage in one-upmanship with fellow parents. As the University of Pennsylvania professor Dr. Annette Lareau has written in her book Unequal Childhoods, all parents strive to create happy childhoods for their kids, but they tend to do so in different ways. Acccording to Lareau, while poor and working-class parents tend to rely on family and unorganized activities to develop their children, whom they believe will grow naturally, middle- and upper-class parents often treat their children as "projects" to develop. As a result, middle-class and upper-class children are often involved in a bevy of activities, and parents closely monitor their child's performance in school and extracurricular activities. As a result, parents feel the need to make sure their children are doing well, and this desire may spill over into boasting about their children's performance. Parents may also at times feel as though their child's performance in school and other activities is a reflection of themselves.
Why Praise and Boasting May Hurt Kids
Recent studies published in Psychology Today and elsewhere show that praising children in the conventional way may actually hurt them in the long term. Though we certainly don't mean to harm our children when we shout "Good job!" from the sidelines of a sports game, studies suggest that children who are praised for the outcome of their efforts often become unwilling to take risks and can lack perseverance. They can become so committed to doing well-rather than to the process of trying-that they are wary of experimenting and trying new things. In addition, children whose results are praised may start to dislike what they are doing and derive less joy from their activities. Parents should and can praise their children, but they should do so in ways that emphasize the process of trying to achieve a goal and should cite their child's hard work but not necessarily the outcome. That way, children won't feel as bad when they inevitably fail, and they will be more likely to be resilient and bounce back after failures. Here are more tips about how to praise children effectively.
In addition, boasting about one's child can set a negative example. Children learn a great deal from watching their parents, and they may start to believe that bragging is acceptable. Children whose parents brag about them may actually feel worse about themselves, too, as they may try to cover up any failures they encounter or feel inept if they are less-than-perfect.
In spite of the advice from child experts to take it down a few notches, there is no doubt that parental pride has reached what may be an all-time high. As Rosemary Sellers recently reported in the Huffington Post, a few parents have even taken to posting their child's college acceptances on Facebook. As Sellers writes, there is so much angst over college admissions these days that parents are right to feel relieved when their kids meet with success. However, such posts do not consider the reactions of the audience. Many of the other parents and kids simply won't really care, while others will consider such posts obnoxious. Finally, the posts show a decided lack of consideration for parents whose kids may not be as successful or who may be contending with difficult issues-including their kid's problems or the inability to pay for the college to which another student was accepted. Again, these types of behavior show that in parents' efforts to reassure their children, they may be unwittingly hurting them in the long run.
