I am starting to wonder if I actually went too far with this philosophy of little praise. DD's self esteem seems to be pretty darn low. I'm so used to worrying about the artificially high self esteem and the "Yay, you moved your foot!" stuff that is prevalent now that I wonder if I have been missing this/messing this up for a while. It seems to be a hard balance to strike. I also am not always sure what is genuine negativity about herself and what is "fishing."
IIRC the heart of the matter is how you give positive reinforcement, not that you need to avoid it. Instead of praising a child for being smart, etc. you praise effort, or praise achievement while noting how proud you are of the effort needed to achieve, perhaps specifically noting and appreciating how the child didn't give up at a certain point but was creative about finding a different approach, etc. One thing I've done with DS6 in the past is ask him if he's happy to have surmounted an obstacle (always "yes") and if he's happy to be more capable after learning something new (again always "yes").
Now, if your kid never has to try at anything, that can be hard to do.
In that case it's time to up the challenge level.
