Beware of "Bad" Praise!

Is there good praise and bad praise for your kids? Isn't any praise good for them? After all, there have been studies that show that self-esteem is incredibly important in our kids. So how can there be bad praise?

In the book, Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children http://www.nurtureshock.com , authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman show why there is such a thing. Not only does a certain type of praise not help our kids, it can actually decrease their desire to achieve.

An example in the book shows kids being giving tests. After the first test, one child is told they are very smart. The other is told they must have tried really hard. For the next test, the children are given a choice of an easier test or a harder one that will teach them something.

The child who was told they were smart picked the easier test. The one who was told they tried hard picked the harder one. And it was not true for just one group of kids. It is universal. The "smart" kid could not allow themselves to fail, so they would not put themselves in a position where that could happen.

If you praise effort, you give the child a variable they can control--the amount of work they put into a project. Conversely, the kids who were praised for their intellect (which they do not control) felt no need to put out effort.

These results were true, regardless of socioeconomic class or gender. So if you want to make a big difference in your child, praise their efforts. Tell them they worked hard on a project and did it well rather than tell them how smart they are. Tell them they hit the ball well in the baseball game rather than saying they are great ball players.

If you think about it, it makes sense.

Children Need to Learn Patriotism at Home

Recently I saw a YouTube video entitled I Fought For You by The Sound Tank. I will post it on my Parents Rule Facebook page tomorrow. It is an excellent way to start a discussion with your child about our country. This week we celebrate Veteran's Day, a day set aside to honor all those men and women who have served our country and played a part in gaining and preserving our freedom.

So many forces are trying to take away our freedoms these days and we must be vigilant. But, even more important, we must teach our children to be on guard against attacks from outside and from inside our borders. Some attacks sound innocent enough until you scratch under the surface and find out the true goals.

Therefore we must (and we must teach our children) to never take a pundit's or a politician's or a reporter's word as absolute fact until we have done the research ourselves. Our country has always been united in its desire to protect our freedom. We need to continue on that path or face loss of what we hold dear about our wonderful country.

Talk to your kids--make sure they know that freedom comes at a price. It is sometimes a steep price, but worth it. Ask any Gold Star mom (one who has lost a child in military service) and she will tell you how proud she is of her child's desire to play their role in our country's history.

God bless our troops and keep them safe.