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The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

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Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#11

Post by dkarl »

hugs wrote: post #8
anatoly wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh, I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have worked really hard on that!"

So let them finish their homework in 10 minutes, and then find something that will take the child more than 10 minutes to do. And praise them for working on that . If praising the 10-minute homework effort is ridiculous, then don't do it. Raise the bar. There's got to be something in the whole field of mathematics that would take the kid more than 10 minutes. (General disclaimers apply, I'm sure there are limits to h…

This is absolutely correct. There always has to be more and harder stuff for kids to accomplish. If there's a ceiling, then smart kids will quickly hit the ceiling and then start measuring themselves by how much effort is required to stay there. That's the way it was at my school: all the honors/AP kids learned the same material, and in every class there were at least a couple of kids who got high As on most things. The only way to distinguish yourself was to do it without working hard, because you couldn't distinguish yourself by accomplishing more and harder things.

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#12

Post by anatoly »

hugs wrote: post #8
anatoly wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh, I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have worked really hard on that!"

So let them finish their homework in 10 minutes, and then find something that will take the child more than 10 minutes to do. And praise them for working on that . If praising the 10-minute homework effort is ridiculous, then don't do it. Raise the bar. There's got to be something in the whole field of mathematics that would take the kid more than 10 minutes. (General disclaimers apply, I'm sure there are limits to h…

(despite the elaborate caveat below, thank you for the detailed answer to my question; it seems like a very promising thing to try)

But if you treat the 10-minute homework as something not worthy of praise or mention, the child might feel cheated. Other kids are being praised for much less impressive efforts. I know I'm doing better than most in my class; why is this overlooked? Am I being penalized for my smarts? Perhaps I'm better off making the homework seem like a huge deal, and finishing it in two hours of seemingly herculean effort?

The parent may think it right to raise the bar as far as the child's aptitude allows, but the child won't necessarily feel this policy to be fair. And most children are naturally apt at gaming parental policies.

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#13

Post by sethg »

hugs wrote: post #8
anatoly wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh, I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have worked really hard on that!"

So let them finish their homework in 10 minutes, and then find something that will take the child more than 10 minutes to do. And praise them for working on that . If praising the 10-minute homework effort is ridiculous, then don't do it. Raise the bar. There's got to be something in the whole field of mathematics that would take the kid more than 10 minutes. (General disclaimers apply, I'm sure there are limits to h…

...or, praise them for working hard in a subject where they aren't talented enough to whip through the homework in ten minutes. If the kid is razor-sharp in math but merely above-average in reading, then their efforts in reading are the ones that particularly need encouragement.

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#14

Post by omarchowdhury »

oversharing wrote: post #10

I love this article. Every little failure in school (failing to win first place in a competition, getting a B on a test) made me doubt my talent, and I started losing all belief in my ability when I started taking graduate-level classes in my field. I knew it was irrational and wrong, but for the previous decade of my life, working hard in school had been a reliable sign of a lack of talent. The kids who had a future…

that there's some paranoia you got

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#15

Post by mechanical_fish »

hugs wrote: post #3

I remember reading this when it first came out in 2007, and it's stuck with me ever since. When my boys (now 5yo and 3yo) do accomplish something super cool (riding a bike, catching a ball, learning to swim), I remind them that it was lots of practice that got them there. Praising effort instead of intelligence feels right, but I really, really hope this doesn't turn out to be some quack parental theory that leaves t…

some quack parental theory that leaves them in rehab for the rest of their lives

You're doing fine. Try to keep in mind that the notion that minor differences in parental style can send your kids into rehab for life is, itself, the quackiest of quack parental theories.

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#16

Post by frossie »

lutorm wrote: post #2

This research is one of the most fascinating things I've come across in a while: The idea that, regardless of whether there is such a thing as an innate trait of "intelligence", your belief that you are either good at something or not will hurt your performance.

There are many many examples of this. For example, if you give girls math tests and tell them your purpose in giving them the test is to check for gender differences in math performance, the girls do significantly worse than if you tell them nothing.

And it's not just intelligence - this is why sports psychologists can make a living coaching athletes.

Of course when you carry out research like this at school level, you can assume that the material is not impossible to master even for a child of average intelligence. I don't know whether these results hold at the world-class researcher level. Still, the school years provide an important foundation for later life, so it is proper that people look into what affects performance.

Re: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

#18

Post by theblackbox »

MtL wrote: post #7
anatoly wrote: post #6

I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh, I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have worked really hard on that!"

Then give the children a chance to develop themselves further; more advanced tasks, other variations of the same task, ask them to explain to you how they think when they solve the task, give them something completely different to spend 20 minutes learning/doing, etc.

I highly recommend juggling and balancing (a broom stick on the chin is a personal favourite) - it can be taught easily, requires quite different mental gymnastics and helps generics such as focus and determination. Plus circus is all about collaboration and entertainment, things that are rarely taught outside of a competitive framework in school. Good preparation for the development of an "interesting" personality, but I would say that!
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