5yr Old Boy Will not accept Praise

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sydney215

last visit to this board
Sep-29

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discussion title:

5yr Old Boy Will not accept Praise

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19209.1

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sydney215

date:

Sep-29 12:18 am

I'm confused on how to handle things with my 5 year old son. He shys away from being praised. He did it with potty training, which he refused to do until he was 4, he would get mad and tell me to stop if I clapped or told him good job. If I tell him you're so good, he'll say no I'm not. If I say "you did it!" when he accomplishes something he'll say he had help even though he did it alone. Just tonight he ate peas, which is major, and I said thats great, good job and he said don't tell Daddy. I don't know why he won't accept any positive reinforcement, I'm stumped. Does anyone have ideas or any experience with this, I just don't know why he doesn't enjoy it when I praise him or get excited for him., it worries me that something is going on in his head and I can't figure out what it is. Please help.

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cmkristy

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Nov-19

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discussion title:

5yr Old Boy Will not accept Praise

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19209.2 in response to 19209.1

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cmkristy

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sydney215

date:

Sep-29 1:59 pm

Hello!

Welcome to the Four-and Five-Year-Olds board!

From your description, I can understand why you are confused. It sounds like you are doing a great job praising your son but for some reason he's having a really hard time accepting the praise.

I'm not an expert at all but my first thought after reading your post was that perhaps your son needs some help with self-esteem. My son is also very hard on himself and I have to really work on helping him in this area.

I found these great articles on iVillage all about self-esteem. They give some great advice on ways you can help to boost his self-esteem as well as things to talk about with his doctor should this continue.

Self-Esteem- http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/self-esteem.html?ice=iv:mb:msg:kp

7 Simple Self-Esteem Builders- http://parenting.ivillage.com/baby/babysteps/0,,9x46lxs5,00.html?ice=iv:mb:msg:kp

Best of luck to you and your little guy. Please keep us posted and let us know how he is doing.

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cl-cariadlawn

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Nov-23

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discussion title:

5yr Old Boy Will not accept Praise

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19209.3 in response to 19209.1

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cl-cariadlawn

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sydney215

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Oct-9 12:59 pm

Is it any time you offer praise even a matter-of-fact, good job? I'm wondering if he is just uncomfortable with attention being focused on him. Some people don't like people looking at them or paying attention to closely. A good friend of my son's is like that. He is very nice, he's a smart and caring kid but he can not stand to have attention focused on him. He got extremely uncomfortable once at school because the teacher made a comment about how well he was doing in the middle of a talk where other kids accomplishments were mentioned. He shrugs off any type of praise even from friends. "oh it was easy." "oh you could do better." When we talk he is more comfortable if I am not focused on him so I'll be doing something else or act like I'm looking for someone AND I keep it short and vague. I think the most I've done when he's done really well and it needs acknowledgment is to tell him "knew you could do it." and moved on to something else. That lets him know that I know but doesn't make the focus shift to him. Then his mom and I celebrate when the boys have gone off to play, lol.