{"id":644,"date":"2009-10-26T15:47:13","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T10:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/dad\/?p=644"},"modified":"2009-10-26T15:47:13","modified_gmt":"2009-10-26T10:17:13","slug":"dangers-of-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/2009\/10\/dangers-of-praise\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangers of Praise"},"content":{"rendered":"

A remarkable article in the New York Times expounds the Power and Perils of praising your kids<\/a>.\u00a0 If you have children, you simply cannot afford to ignore this finding…<\/p>\n

Offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting. Out of our children\u2019s lives from breakfast to dinner, we turn it up a notch when we get home. In those few hours together, we want them to hear the things we can\u2019t say during the day — We are in your corner, we are here for you, we believe in you.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a similar way, we put our children in high-pressure environments, seeking out the best schools we can find, then we use the constant praise to soften the intensity of those environments. We expect so much of them, but we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A series of experiments reveals that it’s not just the praise but the kind <\/em>of praising that gets different results…<\/p>\n

For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia (she\u2019s now at Stanford) studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work\u2014a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders\u2014paints the picture most clearly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles\u2014puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence<\/em>. They were told, \u201cYou must be smart at this.\u201d Other students were praised for their effort<\/em>: \u201cYou must have worked really hard<\/p>\n

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they\u2019d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck\u2019s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder<\/em> set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy<\/em> test. The \u201csmart\u201d kids took the cop-out.<\/p>\n

I am smart, the kids\u2019 reasoning goes; I don\u2019t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized — it\u2019s public proof that you can\u2019t cut it on your natural gifts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Luckily for us, there are a few things we can do differently…<\/p>\n

In the first stage, I fell off the wagon around other parents when they were busy praising their kids. I didn\u2019t want Luke to feel left out. I felt like a former alcoholic who continues to drink socially. I became a Social Praiser…\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then I tried to use the specific-type praise that Dweck recommends. I praised Luke, but I attempted to praise his \u201cprocess.\u201d This was easier said than done…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

… every night he has math homework and is supposed to read a phonics book aloud. Each takes about five minutes if he concentrates, but he\u2019s easily distracted. So I praised him for concentrating without asking to take a break. If he listened to instructions carefully, I praised him for that. After soccer games, I praised him for looking to pass, rather than just saying, \u201cYou played great.\u201d And if he worked hard to get to the ball, I praised the effort he applied.<\/p>\n

Just as the research promised, this focused praise helped him see strategies he could apply the next day. It was remarkable how noticeably effective this new form of praise was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire essay.\u00a0 This one<\/a> is a must-read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A remarkable article in the New York Times expounds the Power and Perils of praising your kids.\u00a0 If you have children, you simply cannot afford<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}