To praise or not to praise, and academic dishonesty

Hello! After reading a couple of books by Abigail Schrier, I am reading a book she recommended by Michaeleen Doucleff, Hunt, Gather, Parent. I’ve shared how our oldest 16-year-old son, seems to reject, or mock praise when I’ve tried to praise him for good choices and behaviors. At its worst in the past, he would say that I was being condescending. Now more often he mocks and makes facial gestures like it’s silly. I wonder if at a deeper level, it’s still effective?

In the book, they talked about Hunter gatherer parents, and how more often than not, praise was not given. They talk about how in western society we actually praise our children for trivial things, versus having them develop a sense of responsibility for cooperating and contributing to the family, with chores etc. In our family, we’ve started late with TSG in the last year, with our children being 11, 13 and 16, and also I felt that my wife tended to praise but perhaps unintentionally praising in the wrong way (ie, you’re so smart or bright, versus look at what you did, and focusing on the choices). Anyhow, I was curious if you think there are times where praise could backfire, and should be avoided and instead acknowledgment provided in a very simple way, especially with a challenging child.

Our oldest has especially struggled with honesty, and significantly struggled with acknowledging any poor choices or behaviors. He recently got caught cheating on a test, and we were notified that he was serving an in school suspension, and would take zeros for the rest of the day. When my wife called me after finding out, we briefly spoke about it and both agreed that natural consequences were sufficient, and we did not need to reinforce with additional consequences at home. She did begin to say that she thought it was unfair that the school would have him earn a zero on additional classes that day, because of the suspension. I disagreed appropriately, giving my perspective that our message with Daniel should be very specific to his choices, and not making him feel like the school is being unfair or that he is any sort of victim in this situation. I pointed out that if anything was unfair, it’s cheating your way through school. And having us sacrifice as a family to put him in a school with high academic standards, at a high cost, and have him think it’s OK to cheat his way. Wondering your thoughts here.

As always, thanks so much