Being proud of your kid and diminishing returns

Hey guys! I want to ask you about how you handle being proud of your kids. My parents had pretty high expectations from me since my older brother was a bit of a prodigy, and I never really fulfilled them (even though, looking back, I did alright both as a kid and as an adult). As a result, I never felt like my parents were proud of me, ever. As it often goes, I tend to do the exact opposite to what my folks did. My question boils down to "Is there such a thing as telling the kids too often that they did good and you're proud of them?".Obviously when they show empathy, or work hard, or do nice things for others, or stuff like that, you'll always tell them you're proud of them, but where do you stop? I'm asking because I recently started playing tennis with my kid. I'm a bit of a tennis fanatic, I've been playing a lot ever since I was little, and even today I make time once a week to hit with an old hitting partner. My five-year-old always wants to come and watch, and I've never taken him because I'm 100% sure he'd be bored as shit. But as a way of letting him into that part of my life, I suggested we play together, fully expecting to go once, have him realize he hates it (tennis is really unforgiving to beginners) and then never hear of it again.So we play a couple of times, and the kid's pretty darn good. He always asks a bunch of questions about how he's supposed to hit, runs down every ball and never gets upset when he mishits. He hit a couple of real nice looking shots today and I told him a bunch how proud of him I am. Couldn't contain myself, like that little bugger was a non-stop self-shitting machine just a few years back and now he's hitting down the line backhand winners against his old man!At the same time I realize that while he probably likes hearing it, if I keep doing it, in a couple years time he might not make anything of it. I like to err on the side of caution and make him feel like I'm too easily impressed by what he does than not at all, but I'd like to hear you guys' take on it. Any of you think it's bad to say you're proud of them for every little good thing they do? Did any of you feel as kids that you impressed your parents so easily that your accomplishments meant nothing? via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2tgtNfU