Praise Gone Wrong?

When my children accomplish something positive, big or small, I try to offer some words of praise to them, as does my husband. Often times we use improper English in the course of these praises. I suppose we could rephrase our praises now, but we started doing this when they were small, and you know you just can't talk proper to little ones all the time, no matter what the experts say. So the habit just stuck. When they would clean things up or put away their toys we would say something like, "you are a great cleaner upper" or "you are a great toy putter awayer". The kids thrive on the praise, whether the English is proper or not, and the praises make an impact. Most notably, they have learned that our praises mean we are hoping they will continue similar behaviors. I realized that this concept was very much understood, when my youngest began praising my husband,"you are a great feeder Daddy." With a broken right arm, my youngest has been milking being spoon fed again, and so she says this to my husband to encourage him to continue feeding her. She is working the praise, so to speak. But the other day, I was a little chagrined, because she praised herself. Not that I don't want my kids to notice their own accomplishments, and to feel confident, but it was the way my child worded her self praise. We were outside, as were many bugs, and pretty much all bugs freak her out. She was not far from a spider apparently, and she began screaming. I calmly told her to just move away from it, and the spider would not bother her. After a few minutes, when she discovered the spider wasn't coming to attack her, she became brave, and essentially attacked it, by stepping on it and killing it. She was proud. She had overcome her fear, at least for that moment, and she announced enthusiastically, "I am a GREAT KILLER, aren't I mommy?" Hmmm. Not exactly words you want to hear your child utter, but it was the only way she knew how to verbalize her accomplishment, which was conquering her fear of bugs. She was looking at me for affirmation, but I simply could not respond with the phrase, "Yes honey, you are a good killer!" Finally, I said, "You did a good job honey." But I could tell it wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as she was hoping.