From nay-sayers to yea-sayers

Last week, I made a shocking discovery. Apparently, I’m not the great, always-encouraging dad I thought I was. Like many other modern parents, I like to lavish praise on my two fabulous boys – for me, they can do no wrong. Riding scooters? They’re the leaders of the pack. Drawing pictures? They’re Michelangelo and Da Vinci in Crayola. Building Lego spacecraft? Just tell Nasa the news. It’s my default setting: ever since they made their first burp, it just had to be the best burp ever. In the realm of reflux, my boys were up there with Wyatt Burp and Wild Bill Hiccup. Yee-ha!

But then I read what US psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz had to say about piling too much praise on your kids. Apparently, rather than building up their confidence and self-esteem, my words may be setting them up for a fall. According to Grosz, dishing out empty praise to your kids is just as bad as tossing out thoughtless criticism, because it sets them up with a self-image they’ll find hard to live up to.

We lavish praise on our children, says Grosz, to show we’re different from our parents, for whom criticism was often the default mode. So, rather than be naysayers like our parents, we’ve become a generation of yea-sayers, cheerleading our kids on and shouting their praises from the rooftops.

There's a scene from Meet the Fockers , in which Bernie and Roz (played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand), proudly unveil their "Wall of Gaylord", a shrine to their son's mediocre sporting achievements. Gaylord's prospective father-in-law, Jack (Robert De Niro) is not impressed. "I didn't know they made ninth-place ribbons," he deadpans. "Oh, they make them all the way up to 10th place," retorts Bernie. Most of us are firmly on Bernie's side here.

Grosz sees this kind of sweeping praise everywhere, he says in his book, The Examined Life , a compendium of things heard and lessons learned in his consulting rooms. Teachers tell kids, "What a great drawing, it's like a Monet." You can see his point. If every kid in the creche is a budding Monet, it would kind of lower the overall Monet-ary value of art.

So, how should we correct this esteem imbalance? Thankfully, Grosz doesn’t suggest going all sergeant-majory on our kids. Parroting empty praise shows we’re ignoring our kids, so instead we should listen to them. And when they do us proud, we shouldn’t attribute it to “cleverness” or “godlike genius”, but give them kudos for for “trying hard” and “making an effort”. Then their achievement will become a spur to greater things rather than a millstone around their little necks.

Of course, I’ve no intention of following his advice – I’m planning to lavish empty praise on my little geniuses until the bovine animals perambulate back to their domicile. Just try and stop me.

But I wonder if we’ve lavished too much praise on some of our historical figures, leaving them with a huge legacy to live up to following their death? There’s Eamon de Valera, for instance, forever saddled with the sobriquet of Ireland’s Greatest Ever President. Should we perhaps have been a little more cautious in our praise?

“Eh, Dev, you’re a great leader and orator, no question, but this bit about comely maidens dancing at the crossroads – I’d drop that from the speech if I were you. The public liability alone would be crippling – and have you seen the state of our maidens these days – scaring the crows away at the crossroads, more like. Let’s just put in happy maidens’ and leave out the crossroads dancing altogether.”

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the US, is rightly praised for having preserved the Union, and for abolishing slavery. But though he was a popular president, it seems he wasn’t up to much in the looks department, something his friends and colleagues were understandably reluctant to bring up: “Abe, babe, love the new suit – looks very gentlemanly and commanding, and I especially like that tall stovepipe hat – really distracts attention from your face.”

John Lennon usually tops every "Best Beatle ever" poll, but in 1968 he and his new girlfriend Yoko Ono released what is generally regarded as one of the most unlistenable albums of all time. Two Virgins was an incoherent melange of tape loops, wails and general noise. Lennon and Yoko posed nude for the album's cover, which led to distributors refusing to handle the album. Did anyone speak out? In the sleeve notes, Paul McCartney wrote: "When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience." What he probably should have written was, "This album is avant garde – I avant garde a clue what they're on about."

Finally, there’s one Irish historical figure who has always seemed beyond reproach, and is still spoken of in hushed tones of reverence several years after his death. Surely there must be something negative we can highlight about this historical giant? Nah: Joe Dolan will be Tops of the Town for all eternity.