I have noticed a trend as of late: we seem to have a ceremony for everything.
You finished preschool, hooray, let's have a mock graduation. What? You got through kindergarten?
Awesome! Another graduation it is.
And just to make sure this is close to the real thing, we will also do "graduation" pictures, even though you are only five, and still have trouble tying your own shoes, and twelve plus years of school remaining.
Oh, you were on the team? You never won a game, and in fact, you personally stood in the middle of the field picking your nose most of the time, but that's ok, here's your trophy, and popsicle. I asked you to clean your room and you did it? Fabulous! Here's a sticker for your sticker chart and once that's full, we will by you a treat.
We tend to over celebrate our children. In doing that, how do we expect them to ever develop self satisfaction? If a reward is expected at every accomplishment, be it big or small, what is going to happen when they seek employment and expect praise and rewards for every little thing. I can hear it now. "But Mr. Johnson, I completed the assignment you gave me, where is my reward?" "Your reward? Son, we call that a paycheck."
Our society praises and rewards children so much, they are going to expect it from everyone. Bosses, friends, spouses, children, the mailman, the store clerk,
everyone. We have gone to the extreme, once again, as a society.
While I firmly believe in verbal affirmations, sometimes the only reward is the lack of punishment that would come from disobedience. I remember a day when my child, after having been told to do something, turned to me and asked, "What will I get if I do it?" My response was something akin to, "Pardon me? What will you get? I can tell you this. If you don't do as I have said you
will get a spanking. How's that?" Between my statement and the crazy eyed look, she got the point:
obedience is its own reward.
I also think we minimize events like high school and college graduations because they have been graduating for the past 14 years or so. The excitement wanes as they think, "Didn't I do this in kindergarten?" We take away the feelings of pride and accomplishment and replace them with complacency and entitlement.
Do we tell our child we are proud of her and thank her for following directions, yes. Do we give her rewards and trophies for doing so? No, not even a certificate of completion. I want my child to develop her own gages of success, to find out how it feels to have accomplished a task for no other reasons than she was supposed to and she had the ability to do so. I want the awards she may receive in life to mean something, to be an accurate indication of the effort she put forth. Simply participating just doesn't cut it.
A few years ago, while at a youth sporting event, I overheard a child say, "They only gave us this trophy because we are on a team. That's silly, we didn't ever win a game. We shouldn't get a trophy." From the mouths of babes.
