QUESTION
Should parents criticize or compliment their children or both?
ANSWER
And the answer is both. Certainly! Parents should be lavish in their praise when their child behaves properly. Not only parents. Neighbors. Anybody should praise people when they behave properly. And don’t be stingy. People love praise and it’s a stimulus to them.
However, parents must also constantly criticize children. Of course in the ancient times they were able to criticize more. Today you have to sugarcoat it a little bit. But whatever it is, you must constantly tell them what’s right.
Nobody knows what’s right. Even adults like ourselves must be told constantly. We’re always slipping back. We always must have somebody to remind us. And if you think that you can never listen to criticism, then you have to know it’s called a leitz, א יֶאֱהַב לֵץ הוֹכֵחַ ל לוֹ – The scoffer doesn’t want want to be criticized, אֶ ל א יֵלֵך חֲ כָמִים ל – that’s why he doesn’t go to the sages (Mishlei 15:12). He keeps away.
People who come here once and they hear things they don’t like and they don’t come again, it’s a sign they don’t want to improve. All they want is people should caress them; that we should say, “Yes, you’re nice. You’re very good.” And they go away just as bad as they were.
When you come with the ambition to improve, when you’re waiting to hear something that might give you a clue, a hint, what you need to know, then you’re very fortunate to be criticized.
So parents should constantly praise and constantly criticize children. Of course it depends on the child and it depends on the circumstances. But we have to see to it that the children are given an impetus to improve themselves. July 1992
