The Power of Praise

I have always considered myself absolutely hopeless at art - as in a total non-starter.  Creative, I could be, as long as we could loosely define creativity to include cooking, gardening, sewing, but as far as drawing or painting, count me out.  


The peak of my artistic endeavours was a caterpillar created from egg-carton at Raetihi Primary School, of which I was extremely proud.  Unfortunately its existence was uncannily short-lived thanks to a couple of bullies, lurking around the corner of the classroom after school, who accosted me and stomped the poor creature into oblivion.  Luckily I have a partner who is quite talented in the artistic way, so it was pretty easy for me to avoid challenging myself by fobbing off my daughters’ requests for drawing to their more talented father.  

However, recently I got talking to a friend who told me that it has been proven that anyone can become good at anything with the will and enough practice.  This passing conversation, in conjunction with watching my daughters learn to draw, made me wonder if it really was kind of lame of me to put myself into a “non-able” box, when maybe I could actually learn this skill, in the same way that I have learnt to do other things in my four decades on this planet.  


So, I have been trying to actually learn to draw.  Not in a really academic kind of a way, but just in a “well let’s give this a whirl” kind of way.  When the girls are drawing, I sit down and draw too, and when they ask me to draw something, I have a go.  I have to say, that the very best part of this whole thing has been the positive feedback from my girls.  “That’s a really great fish Mum.”  “You’re really good at drawing princesses.”  “Can we pin my Mickey on the wall Mum.”  “Dad, look at my Spongie that Mum drew.”  Even the aforementioned Dad has contributed with positive comments regarding my efforts.  


Now if anyone outside of my four walls actually saw my efforts, they would no doubt conclude that there was an artistically-challenged seven-year old with a penchant for drawing Sponge Bob, Mickey Mouse, and renditions of the various fish from “Tiddler” on the loose, but I am quite proud of my little efforts, and get thrilled to my core by the kind comments from my family.  It’s really got me thinking about the power of praise, and how, if a 40 year old can learn something new with a little bit of positive feedback from those around her, how much can our children achieve with our support and encouragement. 


I know that we all do work hard to praise and encourage our nearest and dearest, but I think it’s easy to forget just how good that really feels.  Equally, how much do we teach our children by being prepared to give anything a go, and really showing them that we can do anything that we set our minds to?  Be brave with your efforts, and be generous with your praise - both will make you and yours great.