Is saying “Good Job!” a good thing?

This last week I read an article by Alfie Kohn entitled “5 Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job.’” I must say that as I began this article, I was skeptical. How could encouraging others in their success be a negative thing? But during the course of time it took to read this piece by Kohn, the author had me reevaluating when and how I give praise.

Kohn begins his article by pointing out that most adults see nothing wrong with what he terms as “giving praise.” Why? It is simply because many of us were praised as children. It seems innate to us to verbally reward someone for making their first basket or passing all their classes with high marks. But Kohn challenges his readers to look deeper into the reason why praise is given, how it is used, and makes the suggestion that it is not as positive a response as we may believe it to be.

Kohn makes his first argument by quoting Rheta DeVries, a professor of education from the University of Northern Iowa. When exclaims that praise is nothing more than “sugar-coated control…[that is a way] of doing something to children to get them to comply with our wishes” (1). Kohn goes on to say that this may indeed be effective when children are young and seeking to please their parents, but it is not long lasting and may leave children feeling like they have been manipulated (1).

The second point states that giving praise can produce praise addicts. Kohn makes his case clear that he is not saying parents or teachers should ignore the success of children, but rather should sparingly make value judgments of them (2). The more children are judged, the more it makes them insecure. The more insecure they become the more they will be hindered by apprehension. Praise, one of the most common motivators is actually a deterrent for positive growth.

In the last three points, the article argues that praising negatively affects and hinders children’s progress by stealing their personal pleasure of success, causes them to loose interest, and reduces their achievement. These digressions are caused by the inability of external motivation to produce self-satisfying and long lasting results. Children who are aiming to please, when they no longer receive praise, quit.
In response, Kohn proposes three alternatives to praise giving:

1) Say nothing. Often, people give praise because they don’t know what else to say. This does not mean that you never give positive or encouraging feed back. It just means that you should sparingly make a value judgment. Try encouraging in other ways that automatically saying: “Good job!”

2) Say what you saw. Giving a descriptive statement lets the child or learner know that you saw them do it. Kohn says that this allows the child to take pride in what they did (5).

3) Talk less and ask more. Get the student or child to reflect on what they just accomplished. Help them find their voice by leading them to make an evaluative conclusion.


Finally, Kohn makes is clear that he is not discouraging encouragement. Rather, he is getting adults to consider their motives: “Are our reactions helping the child to feel a sense of control over her life—or to constantly look to us for approval” (5). Praise-giving has become an almost mindless response to anyone who performs well on any task with possibly the classroom being the most prolific of locations in which it is given. In order to ensure that children are able to make confident, analytical and responsible decisions, it is important that they move beyond pleasing to thinking for themselves.

The most impacting portion of this article for me personally was the section on becoming addicted to praise. There have been times in my life where I craved the praise of others more than I cared about my own thoughts or feelings. I did not understand how this developed, but I knew that it was a problem that interfered with my independence and stability as a person. I see now that much of that has been shaped by society and has been constantly reinforced with praise. I am not yet sure that I will completely eliminate praise from my speech, but I am going to be more aware of my tendencies to give it, and will probably be more intentional in seeking other ways of encouraging and motivating others than by mindlessly saying “good job!”