When Everything Becomes a Reward

 

On praise, expectation, and what children learn to take for granted

Children do not simply achieve — they announce it.

Yesterday, my granddaughter came running to me, eyes bright, over the moon with pride, holding out two small stickers she had received from her piano teacher. She was ecstatic, and so was I, in that quiet way adults sometimes are when a small moment stays longer than expected.

Now, she is not the next Beethoven — at least not yet.

But that was never the point. In her world, those stickers meant something simple and powerful: she had tried, she had improved, and someone had noticed.

It took me back, quite suddenly, to my own school days at St Joseph’s in Allahabad, where acknowledgement looked very different. There were no stickers or smiley stamps, no colourful charts celebrating small steps. We did not grow up in a culture of frequent rewards. What we did receive, on rare occasions, was a pat on the back from a teacher — brief, understated, and for that very reason, memorable.

What we had instead were coloured report cards. Above 80 per cent meant a pink card: “Very Good.” Between 65 and 80 was blue: “Good.” Between 40 and 65 was yellow: “Fair.” Anything below that was red — the dreaded “Unsatisfactory.” The colours were few, and they were not handed out lightly, which is exactly why they carried weight.

Today, the approach has changed, and rightly so. We now understand far more about confidence, wellbeing, inclusion, and the importance of children feeling seen while they are learning. A well-timed word of encouragement can genuinely shape how a child sees themselves, and most parents and teachers are now far more conscious of that responsibility.

Yet somewhere along the way, something subtle has shifted. Acknowledgement has become more frequent and immediate, and it has begun to lose its sense of distinction. As with many things in life, too much of a good thing can quietly dilute its meaning.

“And when everything is marked, very little feels earned.”

This is where leadership quietly enters — not as instruction or motivation, but in shaping what people come to see as normal. People do not grow only through reassurance; they grow through clear, calm expectations, without too much noise.

Good leaders understand this balance. They know we must be careful with praise and reward — not stingy, but deliberate — so that it remains meaningful rather than routine. They also know when to step back, allowing effort to exist without constantly turning it into acknowledgment.

Because not everything that is done needs to be immediately seen.

Over time, it is rarely what is formally communicated that shapes people most. It is the quieter signals — what is noticed, what is overlooked, and what is allowed to pass without comment. These signals slowly form a person’s understanding of effort, value, and success.

My granddaughter’s joy brought this into focus. The issue is not the stickers themselves. It is what they quietly begin to train us to expect — that effort will always be noticed, and quickly returned.

Once they step out of the cocoon of school, the world feels different. It is less responsive, less generous with feedback, and far more silent than many are prepared for. When that familiar reassurance no longer comes, the reaction is often uneven — frustration for some, and for others a quiet dependence on external validation that no longer arrives so easily.

And perhaps that is the real question. Not whether we should stop acknowledging effort, but whether we are preparing children for a world that constantly marks everything they do — or one that quietly expects them to keep going even when nothing is marked at all.

Because in the end, the most lasting form of approval is not the one that is repeated often, but the one that is earned once — and stays long after the moment has passed.