Why do people idolise this idea? What is this elusive “good” child?

When my daughter achieves something- she is innately excited. She beams up at me as if to say “Look, I did it, Mum!”. Sometimes, she doesn’t look at me at all. She chortles to herself or looks in awe at the effect of her actions and then goes to try it again.

Often, in these moments, I find I become the observer. I think carefully here of the posts I have read, the books that have been recommended to me or the advice I have heard: “Praise your child”. I think about it and I go to praise her- and I get stuck. I either can’t do it or sometimes I do it and sometimes I don’t. It feels unnatural. But why?

I have been mulling it over. Am I hampering my child’s growth because I am not praising her enough? I think about training my dog; I say “good boy” when he does something right and then he learns what’s “good” and what I expect of him. Is this not the same with kids? And maybe therein is where my sticking point is. My child is not a dog.

When you achieve something, and I mean something you really want, why do you do it? Are you doing it for external validation or is this something you want for yourself? What’s the driver here? I have seen both models. People who constantly seek external validation to experience their version of self worth. And then I have seen the people in my life who don’t seek this much (everyone seeks it sometimes). I have watched those rare few who kind of seem to just go for what they want and they don’t really look around for how people around them respond. They’re innately driven. These people seem happier somehow. Lighter. They experience life made out of their own model and are more content to coast when they feel like and sprint when they need to. They’re less anxious about the letters behind their name or their next goal post that they some people need to always have on the horizon. This is what I want for my daughter. Internal validation.

So she picks up a peg and fidgets with it for a while and furrows her little brow, intently focused. And the peg falls. Or the peg gets in the hole, finally. And whether she drops it or she gets frustrated and moves on to the next thing or she nails it in one go, I smile at her and I follow her lead. The toys around her are curated for her education, some are things that cater to her particular interests and some are just ideas I have on ways to encourage her development. Some are from instagram wormholes I have fallen prey to. But they’re all good quality toys that are designed to help her learn skills through play. But she gets to choose how to play with them.

There’s not a lot of “good job” or “well done!” That floats around our household. But there are a lot of milestones being met when she’s ready and a lot of joy. Both the joy of me getting to watch her grow and the pride my little girl has in herself that she gets to share with us in the way she wants to. We are always there, quietly guiding when she turns to us for help, beside her to play when she wants us to play with her and then, really, in the background choosing what is in her environment carefully. But she calls her shots within that safe bubble, and we hope that this helps build a little internal voice that says “I did it!” We hope that she doesn’t spend her whole life looking out for someone else’s voice to day “You did it!” Even though we are always there, quietly cheering her on.

Who knows if this is what I am cultivating? But somehow, this feels more right to me.