The Praise Maze

The Praise Maze

J.D. walked into his kindergarten interview with a smile on his face. The teacher asked him to count as high as he could. J.D. looked at her and asked, “If I do, will I get a sticker?” The interview continued with the teacher asking questions and J.D. asking for stickers. After the interview, J.D’s parents admitted that they gave J.D. a lot of praise and stickers. Now he expected them for every accomplishment from brushing his teeth in the morning to getting into bed at night.

It is natural for parents to praise their children. But research shows that too much praise — and the kind of praise given— can have deleterious effects. Children who are overpraised may shut down when something requires extra effort. Praising a child’s good looks, intelligence, or strength can cause them to overrate their innate abilities and underrate the importance of effort.

Imagine that almost everything you do in a day is new to you. Pretty daunting. That’s the world kids enter every day. Children must learn thousands of new skills just to navigate at home — add daycare, preschool, teams, clubs, and any one of a hundred places they visit with their parents and the effort is overwhelming. Children need confidence to attempt these many challenges. Parents’ and teachers' encouragement keeps them trying. 

Encouragement focuses on effort and persistence. Praise focuses on accomplishment. Saying to a child, “You are so smart,” is different from encouraging them by saying, “I like the way you worked your way through that problem.” Dr. Carol Dweck, working with her team at Columbia University, discovered that the wrong kind of praise, that which emphasizes accomplishment over effort, can have a negative effect: “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable they can control. They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural [ability] takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to failure.” When over-praised children, those who have been told that they are succeeding due to an innate quality (intelligence, strength, beauty, talent, etc.) encounter failure, they are more likely to shut-down believing that the task is beyond their ability. Dweck calls this the “inverse power of praise.” Children who think that the key to success is innate are less likely to put much effort into a task that does not come easily to them.  

Persistence and effort should be encouraged. In one study, children who had been taught that intelligence can be developed improved their study habits and skills regardless of their natural abilities. Being taught that the brain is a muscle that can be  strengthened with use, like any other muscle, gives students the confidence to attempt difficult tasks.

The best kind of encouragement targets specific actions children can take to get good results: I like the way you organized your work. You worked hard on these problems. I can see the revisions you made to make this a better paragraph. You shared so nicely. Your cartwheel improved with practice. You’ve made great progress with ….  Children learn that success comes through hard, focused work. 

Clear focused encouragement coming from a loving parent or a dedicated teacher lasts longer than any sticker. Give it a try. I know you, and they, can do it. 

(Quotations found in “The Praise Paradox: Are We Smothering Kids in Kind Words?” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman NEAToday, 2011)