Alfie Kohn - Parenting - Selected Publications - Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" -- At first I thought I would not agree with (or like) this article. Even part way through it I was questioning (which is good, actually). But it made me realize that I am pretty good at this. My son says "I did it!" a lot, and he even said "You did it!" to his little brother when he sucessfully put the ball in the laundry basket.

I also noticed that is probably related a couple of days ago when we visited my dad. My sister and her two daughters were there. The older girl (Dear Niece) is almost 4. (DS1 is 2 1/2.) They got out some puzzles to do. DN asked Grandpa to help. Then DS1 asked for help, too. He doesn't usually ask for help with puzzles, and these were ones that he could easily have done without help. It seemed like when he saw DN "needing help" that he then "needed help" too. I don't know if DN really did need help with the puzzles or that she was wanting interaction, but seeing that behavior copied caught my attention.