[blindkid] no appreciation for praise

[Kathy B]

Richard,

Addie(4) also has a great ear for music with the ability to recongnize pitch all 
those sorts of things.  (I'm not muscially blessed, can you tell?) :) Anyway, I 
was wondering if you started Kendra in any music lessons?  I'd like to start 
Addie with piano, but don't know how to go about finding a teacher comfortable 
teaching braille music or a blind child.

Kathy




________________________________
From: Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sat, August 21, 2010 11:21:08 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] no appreciation for praise

Barbara,  I generally go ahead and offer her a small amount of praise (and often 
make her mad too), but I try to keep it as minimal as I can manage. I think that 
at least small amounts of acknowledgment and positive reinforcement are a good 
thing, in nearly every case. There must be something to the notion that she'll 
grow into better acceptance of complementary things over time as well. That's 
what I read when I look for answers on the topic.

As I just mentioned in a reply to Bonnie, it appears that (despite her claim to 
the contrary) Kendra is actually progressing at least a bit with her ability on 
a conventional keyboard, but she denies having been the one typing what I found, 
which no doubt from her standpoint would avert the likelihood that she'd have to 
deal with any praise. (Why would I tell her she did a good job if she tells me 
up front that she didn't do the work I found.) Sort of clever and irritating all 
at once, right?

Kendra also has a keen musical ability with outstanding pitch recognition and 
memory. When she was younger (3 or 4) she'd share that ability openly. Now she 
claims not to know what notes things are or what keys pieces are in, etc.  
Again, no need to worry about praise if she can't do the thing. The problem is, 
she "slips up" every now and then, by complaining that something is in the wrong 
key for example, or asking what some particular song she just heard was. I might 
say "which one?" and instead of saying, "the one about the boat", she'll say 
"the one in G Major", etc., (And when I check, she's invariably right.) In that 
case, I just go forward with the discussion and skip the praise beyond maybe 
saying "Oh, the on in G Major was..."

This is not a great answer to your question I realize, but I'm still trying to 
figure out the whole cause of the problem in our case. My best guess is it may 
have something to do with having too many people over-praise her when she was 
really young. As some on this list have observed in the past, it really is not 
so terribly amazing that our kids can walk across a classroom or flip on a light 
switch and when people "go over the top" telling our kids what a great job they 
did, I think it at least perpetuates the problem.

I'm seeing the same thing a little bit with my (sighted) son right now a bit. 
He's 4 years old and just started riding the school bus. The sweet lady who 
drives the bus keeps telling him what a good job he's doing when he steps up 
onto the bus. Well yes, he's doing fine, but he's been walking up steps for a 
while. I think he's pretty much over being praised for that. It happens to a lot 
of kids, but I think some sighted adults tend to really over-do it with blind 
kids. They don't know how THEY would do that if THEY could not see, so it seems 
amazing to them...

For now, all I know to do is to keep continue to offer modest amounts of praise, 
at lest for "praise-worthy" things. The other thing I try to do is to make 
certain she hears others being given (and ACCEPTING) appropriate positive 
feedback around the house.

If you find something that helps, please share it with me as I'd love to see 
this ongoing challenge vanish!

Richard



On Aug 21, 2010, at 9:42 PM, Barbara Hammel wrote:

> Richard, we've one who hates to be praised also so am wondering what you do to 
>let Kendra know she's done well.  We have to say good job doing ... or just 
>thank him for doing it.
> Barbara
> 
> ...
> Yesterday is
> A path well-trod,
> A familiar lane
> Through sacred sod,
> A road we travel
> Too often, I fear,
> For there are the good times
> When things are hard here,
> ...
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