Praising children the wrong way, and not telling the truth about skill level, can have a major impact on their ability to achieve later in live. In executing my passion on a daily basis, I come across too many children who are thinking they are better than they actually are. This can be a clear sign of a wrong mindset nurtured by the environment in which they spend the most time (the family). It is important to know what to say and how to praise children to create a growth mindset essential to succeed in life. The good news is you can change a fixed mindset (no good) to a growth mindset (needed). Lets get it right!
GUIDING YOUR CHILD TO THE GROWTH MINDSET
It is important that the adults around the child understand and embrace the growth mindset. They need to be able to guide their children in their everyday life, and model the behaviour that the growth mindset advocates. Of particular relevance to parents is the topic of praise, which I’ll briefly discuss below. If you would like a more in-depth discussion of this and other growth mindset topics, we highly recommend our co-founder, Carol Dweck’s, book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
The Mindsets
Dr Dweck’s research shows that someone’s mindset profoundly affects the way they lead their lives. It determines behaviour which has significant consequences.
Fixed Mindset: The belief that one or more of your basic qualities is set in stone. This mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over by undertaking efforts with low risk and high probability of success. Students with a fixed mindset will frequently lose interest in a subject when it becomes difficult.
Growth Mindset: The belief that your basic qualities can be cultivated through your own effort and that we don’t know the upper bounds of what anyone can accomplish with years of passion, toil and training.
The Danger of Praise
No parent thinks “I wonder what I can do today to undermine my children, subvert their effort, turn them off learning and limit their achievement.” Of course not. They think “I would do anything, give anything, to make my children successful.” Yet many of the things they do have the wrong effect – their helpful judgments, their lessons, their motivating techniques often send the wrong message.
Messages About Success
Listen for the messages in the following examples:
“You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!”
“Look at that drawing. Martha, is he the next Picasso or what?”
“You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!”
If you’re like most parents, you hear these as supportive, esteem-boosting messages, but listen more closely. See if you can hear other messages, the ones that children hear:
“If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.”
“I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll see I’m no Picasso.”
“I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.”
Healthy Praise
After several experiments with hundreds of children, we have clear findings that praising children’s intelligence lessens their motivation and harms their performance. Instead of praising talent and intelligence, focus on your child’s effort and behaviour. As an example, rather than saying, “You are very smart for getting an A in math,” you can say “You must have tried very hard to get an A in math.” This puts the praise on the effort and the behaviour rather than on the outcome, the A in math. Upon failure, you could say “I know how you feel. It’s disappointing to get your hopes up and to perform your best but not make the squad, but it happens to everybody and we must take it as a learning experience. If this is something that you really want, then it’s something you’ll really have to work for, as with everything else in life. We can try different approaches and learn from them to find the way to success.” This approach allows you to console and empathise with your child. It also gives your child the opportunity to grow from failure and teaches that through hard work and effort anyone can undertake lifelong learning and self- improvement.
Beverley Chapman says
Excellent … and how true. Thanks
Joe Spiteri says
One of the best articles I have read so far Excellent mate keep up the good work
Todd Van Epen says
What a virtuous article. It definatley speaks true with current collegeing and literature. It also gives higher expectations of achievement for all students/children who see teachers and adults who display healthy praise. Love it!