I grew up in a family where I rarely felt loved. I was told (or worse, left to guess) what I should do, how I should be, what I should feel. I tried and tried to be perfect, but I was never good enough. Even before M was conceived, I was fiercely determined not to pass this legacy on to my child. I would give my love unconditionally, not capriciously. My child would grow up okay with being herself, not needing to hide her feelings or do or say certain things to “earn” my love. This has been the unwavering principle behind my parenting.

It seems easy enough to do with a newborn or infant. They don’t “do” much, and they aren’t very good at censoring their feelings, or behaving in certain ways to get your approval. So it’s unlikely you’ll have to worry about them modifying their behavior in an attempt to win your love. I have still worked at hewing to my philosophy, however, believing the practice would do me good, and also that children understand our intent, even when they don’t understand our words.

Early on, I shied away from the phrase “Good Girl”. One might assume that growing up feeling like I was never good enough would lead me to tell my daughter she was “good” all the time. But one of the most persistent shadows of my childhood is that I allow others to define me – I look elsewhere for acceptance and approval, a pat on the head … a “Good Girl”. I let others tell me what to do and how to feel. I live in constant fear of doing the wrong thing, making the wrong choice, upsetting the wrong person. So rewarding M with a “Good Girl” for something she does is simply training her to follow in my footsteps. I am teaching her to look to me to find out if she’s good or bad, skilled or unskilled, happy or sad. But doing something doesn’t make M a good girl. She’s good simply for being.

So “Good Girl” had to go. But it left a big void in my vocabulary. What to say when she did something that excited me? How to acknowledge and encourage her? I settled on “Good Job” instead, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was just a mildly less offensive version of the original. Then I read New Mama’s The Good Jobbing of Henry, and her link to Alfie Kohn’s Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!”, and immediately vowed to forever excise “Good Job” from my arsenal. This quote really sealed the deal for me:

Mary Budd Rowe, a researcher at the University of Florida, discovered that students who were praised lavishly by their teachers were more tentative in their responses, more apt to answer in a questioning tone of voice (”Um, seven?”). They tended to back off from an idea they had proposed as soon as an adult disagreed with them. And they were less likely to persist with difficult tasks or share their ideas with other students.

This describes me to a T. Always testing the waters, dipping my toe in to make sure I’m doing the “right” thing before plunging headfirst. Leaving things unstarted or unfinished … better to do nothing than take a risk and make a mistake. I will not sentence my daughter to the same fate. I will not rob her of her creativity and passion, the drive to explore and experiment, the joy of living an uninhibited life.

When I say “Good Job!”, I feel like I’m taking M’s power away from her. If, instead, I reflect back to her what she’s done (“You did it! You walked across the room!”), then I’m handing that power back to her. I’m not the judge and jury. I acknowledge what she has done, and allow her to decide how she feels about it.

M is now at an age where “Good Girl” and “Good Job” are usually tossed out left and right, and I’m finding I’m glad I started practicing alternatives early. It has taken time to grow into this idea, to shed the almost compulsive need to praise, to disentangle myself – and protect M – from my childhood training to look to others for approval. It isn’t always easy, and I occasionally fumble about for something to say while clamping my mouth shut to keep those “Good Jobs” from rolling off the tongue. But it is a worthwhile endeavor. From Kohn:

I cherish the occasions when my daughter manages to do something for the first time, or does something better than she’s ever done it before. But I try to resist the knee-jerk tendency to say, “Good job!” because I don’t want to dilute her joy. I want her to share her pleasure with me, not look to me for a verdict. I want her to exclaim, “I did it!” (which she often does) instead of asking me uncertainly, “Was that good?”

M will always be a good girl. She doesn’t need me to tell her that. What she needs is for me to not convince her otherwise.