Toxic Praise
We all enjoy – nay – crave encouragement, but frankly not all forms are good. Rather than raising our spirits, some types of praise leave us worse off.
For example, some people praise to see failure. If a classmate has inside information that a particular essay choice is hard, he/she may, if they’re nasty, encourage you to take it anyway, just to see you land hard.
False praise is also the currency of the yes-man (or -woman). We’ve all known one in every class or internship. Constantly praising seniors, praising lecturers, praising bosses, praising anyone in a position of power. Yet all these are merely a practice run, refining their skills in preparation for their official office debut – when they start turning false praise into a pay raise. Frankly, if you receive their praise, be very suspicious.
Then there’s the parents who praise their “darling” for being clever, when they verbally abuse their haplessly disenfranchised maid. Or for being smart, when they correctly memorise answers for an examination. Or for being brave, when they successfully ride a bus alone by the ripe old age of 12. What’s the net result of poorly made parental praise? Raising a future generation of even worse parental role models.
Even genuinely well-intentioned, yet misplaced praise can harm. A teacher who praises no matter how mediocrely you do ultimately undermines your drive to excel, while a parent who rubs your head even if you’re messing up your life is really rubbing toxic levels of self-belief into you.
Just as it’s possible to give the wrong kind of praise, it’s also possible to give too much. Encouragement gives us courage, and courage gives us strength. But making a kid feel like a superhero is actually setting them up for failure, be it a broken heart or a refusal to take real risks in life. Frankly, if we never learn to fall, we won’t ever learn to get up.
In the end, not all encouragement is positive, but a little of the good stuff gives us courage to face the real world. The best measure is being honest with yourself. Would you really praise that assignment, that job, that way you handled a tough situation. If it’s hard to say, it’s best no one says anything at all.
