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.