Do what makes sense for your kid and you. Everything else is mostly nonsense.
Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
121–130 of 166 posts
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
"You worked really hard on it that!" seems a bad thing to say without having observed the kid working hard. I know if I'd been told I worked hard on something that came easily, it would have cost the speaker credibility. My tentative plan, for my son, is to phrase it as a question. "Did you work hard on this?". If so, praise the hard work. If not, "let's find you something more challenging".
In addition, the work being praised needs to be effective.
I think it's probably more important that it's aimed at being effective than that it is genuinely being effective.
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#123I can confirm that. When i was child, every teacher said to me and my parents that i am so gifted, so smart. And i thought i am so smart that i don't need to spend so much time on school like others. So i missed on school a lot. In high school there were classes on which i was less than 50% throughout the semester. And it was ok, i needed only 2 last weeks to pass all the tests. In last year i did the same, again i n…
That is a fucked up school full of tools. There was a gifted kid in my third grade. He was moved up one grade straight to 5, and again to 7 to finally match rest of the class.
While the response that GP got was wrong on my levels, what was done to that gifted kid was no favor either.
Anecdote warning: I've seen very few kids who skip more than a grade (if that) who have the ability to relate and function among peers well. They're not generally going to be accepted as a peer at that age by kids a couple-few years older than them - and for many, school is where that skill is learned.
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#124Putting a little TL;DR up here on top, because I'd really like to see folks' answers to this:
What's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort?
Now, regularly scheduled thoughts :) :
What is a good, short method/word for praising effort?
with my 8.5-month old, "Good Job," specific variants on it ("Good Job climbing that staircase, tiny!") and such have worked wonderfully, but I seek something more-
It's so easy to praise a child's intelligence - "You're so smart!" "That's so clever!" - but much harder to praise effort, in my experience so far, because "I can tell you worked so hard to do that, that's so great!" just doesn't roll off the tongue very well! And this is important- "Good job!" is at the nexus of how I praise my little boy partially because he totally understand it. He's got that, even if he may not know the individual words exactly, he absolutely knows what Daddy means when, "Good job, baby!" comes out of daddy's mouth. I have VERY LOW FAITH that I could get, "I can tell you worked so hard to do that, that's so great!" to work the same!
(Incidentally, I also now feel I know more about why, in America at least, we often say, "I'm doing good," and variants thereof, instead of "I'm doing well." "Well" just isn't in the primal vocabulary quite as deeply, maybe because of its association with "Well, I was going to, but then I didn't," type of statements. "Good" is simple and meaningful, and I often find myself telling my son he's done something so "good," and then correcting myself a little, because, well, I want to teach him correct grammar, but more than that, I want to communicate with him meaningfully - and "good" gets a meaning across with which he's already familiar, while "well" does not, and has other common uses.)
So what's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort?
Maybe I need to invent a word for this and see if it catches on! :D
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#125Putting a little TL;DR up here on top, because I'd really like to see folks' answers to this: What's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort ? Now, regularly scheduled thoughts :) : What is a good, short method/word for praising effort? with my 8.5-month old, "Good Job," specific variants on it ("Good Job climbing that staircase, tiny!") and such have…
Talk about it. "That's great! Was it hard?"
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#126Putting a little TL;DR up here on top, because I'd really like to see folks' answers to this: What's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort ? Now, regularly scheduled thoughts :) : What is a good, short method/word for praising effort? with my 8.5-month old, "Good Job," specific variants on it ("Good Job climbing that staircase, tiny!") and such have…
I've always said, "You're a hard worker" to my three kids. I've never told them they were smart and have emphasized how much more important hard work is over intelligence.
Oldest is 12 now, all three do very well.
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#127Putting a little TL;DR up here on top, because I'd really like to see folks' answers to this: What's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort ? Now, regularly scheduled thoughts :) : What is a good, short method/word for praising effort? with my 8.5-month old, "Good Job," specific variants on it ("Good Job climbing that staircase, tiny!") and such have…
Talk about it. "That's great! Was it hard?"
This is great advice, but I'm not sure it hits the mark I'm trying to hit - I do already talk to my little guy about what things were hard vs. easy, and how much I admire his efforts, but there's a flow to interactions, especially with a small child - I'm looking for something I can use for a shorthand of this kind of conversation, because he totally loses interest if I just sit there and jabber for too long. If I want to impart any actual meaning, I have to be concise (though teaching him to pay attention longer is certainly also on the agenda- but again, can't try to do everything, every time, often there's just a brief moment, and I want to offer praise, it seems right logically to offer praise, it even FEELS right, but- am I then bound to have a whole conversation at that moment, or is there shorthand for the times when for his reasons or my own, I absolutely cannot?
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#128Putting a little TL;DR up here on top, because I'd really like to see folks' answers to this: What's the simple-language equivalent of, "You're so smart," or "That was so smart," but for intellectual effort ? Now, regularly scheduled thoughts :) : What is a good, short method/word for praising effort? with my 8.5-month old, "Good Job," specific variants on it ("Good Job climbing that staircase, tiny!") and such have…
I've always said, "You're a hard worker" to my three kids. I've never told them they were smart and have emphasized how much more important hard work is over intelligence. Oldest is 12 now, all three do very well.
I'm already working on getting my little one to go for the idea that intelligence == hard intellectual work, not innate ability, and "You're a hard worker!" is pretty good, and I think you for it!
I'm still searching for more, though, because "You're a hard worker," has actually been one of the things I've been trying, but it often feels- wrong. Stilted, like I'm trying too hard to teach instead of just sincerely offer the poor kid the damn praise. ;) Maybe I just need more practice, but I feel like there's room for improvement in the language there. :D :)
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#129I tell my child she is smart AND that that isn't enough for us. We know she is smart, but so are we and we can tell when she is slacking and lying. It's actually working very well, but it took quite a while for her to believe us. In the long run she is showing a deep appreciation for how honest we are with her. This would likely work with most smarter children. If you don't play mind games with them they will stop tr…
The developmental advice I've heard is that you should praise the act, not the attribute. That is, if they do something clever, you praise the clever thing they did, not the fact that they're clever. I know that probably sounds like splitting hairs, but kids and adults have at least as many issues communicating as adults and other adults have.
On the other hand, I've heard that if a child does something wrong, you criticize the act and try to make it incompatible with the child's self-image. As in, "I don't know why you would punch anyone, because you're such a nice boy!"
Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]
#130I tell my child she is smart AND that that isn't enough for us. We know she is smart, but so are we and we can tell when she is slacking and lying. It's actually working very well, but it took quite a while for her to believe us. In the long run she is showing a deep appreciation for how honest we are with her. This would likely work with most smarter children. If you don't play mind games with them they will stop tr…
The developmental advice I've heard is that you should praise the act, not the attribute. That is, if they do something clever, you praise the clever thing they did, not the fact that they're clever. I know that probably sounds like splitting hairs, but kids and adults have at least as many issues communicating as adults and other adults have.
It's not splitting hairs at all. "That's so clever" means "do something like that again to get praise". "You're so clever" means "you don't need to do any more work to be praised".