Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#151

Post by visarga » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 8:41 AM UTC

GrinningFool wrote: post #147

visarga wrote: post #110

Praise intelligence -> makes them give up easier. Praise hard work -> could be a subtle attempt at manipulation. Maybe instead we should ask them what they want to do, and support their creative activities.

What a child wants to do is what a child wants to do right now . If you ask the same question a few minutes later, you could get an entirely different answer. As adults who have lived through being children, a surprising percentage of us actually do know better than a small child what's best for the small child for a surprising percentage of their lives.

I read once about a highschool boy, a good student, who was shocked when a teacher asked him "What do YOU want to do?". What? he thought. This question has never crossed my mind. Nobody told me I can make my own mind. It was always "teacher knows best" and "parent knows best" and "be a good student and learn what we teach you, do what we tell you".

I wrote from this point of view, but I agree that parents and teachers know better most of the time, I just don't know if it is good to try so hard to make sure the child doesn't make any "wrong" choices.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#152

Post by ComodoHacker » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

gkya wrote: post #106

Practicality wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to apologize, you are 100% right.

Sometimes one needs to apologise for objective points to not be called 'uncivil'...

So you've been brought to norm, too.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#153

Post by illza » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 2:53 PM UTC

lossolo wrote: post #48

I 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…

I've never understood the reasoning that administration and teachers put forth that the smart and "gifted" need to set an example for the other kids. A student is at school to be taught, not to set an example and teach the other kids. Every child has a right to learn. Teaching is what the teachers are for. If you were slacking off and still passing with minimal effort, they should have accelerated you to the point you could no longer do that without working at it. That would have better taught you the value of work in addition to not wasting years of your life. In my opinion, it's a crime that schools waste so much of the lives of intelligent children for no better reason than "but that's where a child of such age SHOULD be."

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#154

Post by illza » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

continuational wrote: post #149

lossolo wrote: post #48

I 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…

The point of schools is not to teach you how to pass tests. It's to give you knowledge that sticks for life. Studying intensively for two weeks will let you (or mostly anybody, really) pass a test, but usually you will have forgotten most of it after a year. Attending class will give you delayed repetition of the material over a long period of time, which will help you remember.

How many nba players do you think spent years working on layups and nothing else? The push themselves. They work on what they're not good at yet, and in doing that, improve at the things they already are.

Spending years going to classes that do nothing but teach you things you have already mastered is not practice. It's torture. To improve retention and mastery you keep using the skills you've attained to greater effect. The compounding is what matters. Move too slowly and people shut down, tune out, and ignore the material. That's when material is forgotten.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#155

Post by illza » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

GrinningFool wrote: post #123

rasz_pl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Much of the research states otherwise. While there are certainly instances of your anecdote that do occur, the rule seems to be that higher achieving students function better with those at their level than with those beneath them. And, even then, the problem is temporary. The majority of those accelerated kids, when interviewed as adults indicated that they wish they had been accelerated soon or more, and that any social issues were temporary and fleeting.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#156

Post by thanatropism » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

I have a pretty good boss. Of course, we're all adults. Anyway, our boss has this way of treating everyone differently -- knowing which buttons to push. With me he'll always give me the occasional harder task saying "This is going to be easy for you"; with my coworker, he has to press harder and say "this is important, don't screw it up".

I was recently depressed and without really having been told anything he gave me this hollywood-movie pep talk along the lines of "it's important that you know that you have great talents so don't sweat the small stuff and tell me if you're in trouble".

Maybe this is pretty much off-topic, but the point I wanted to make is that people react to different things and much of the art of squeezing motivation and productivity out of them has to do with understanding this.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#157

Post by thanatropism » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

pasquinelli wrote: post #71

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #13

Stop trying to game your kids. Praise them whatever. Love, security, praise, attention, just go for it. I doubt very much that all the noise around raising children can be filtered out to be able to differentiate between sentences. Just raise kids with love and fun.

"Stop trying to game your kids." i really like that, nice and succinct. i figure that the ways that i am which are outside of my control, or even my awareness, dwarf the ways i am that are within my control. my efforts to be a good parent are almost insignificant compared to, i don't know, my posture and facial expression while speaking with the cashier at the grocery store, and all the other things like that. maybe…

Khalil Gibran: "Your children are not your children

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you, they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite.

And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hands be for happiness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

So He loves the bow that is stable."

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#158

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:28 PM UTC

Fordrus wrote: post #124

Putting 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…

[deleted]

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#159

Post by pwthornton » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

My daughter is only two, but she is clearly smart. Some people tell her how smart she is, but I largely do not. What I try to do instead is to encourage her to keep trying and keep pushing and that failure is temporary. When she was one and learning to climb up and down stairs (which she loves to do over and over again), I would keep telling her "you can do it" as she went down each step and tried to gauge whether or not she could go further. When she was finished I would tell her, "you did it," and she started saying "I did it" when she completed a flight.

She also stumbles and falls a lot as we climb different things and walk over different surfaces. I tell her "keep going" or "you've got this" and she gets right back up and keeps trying. I find that if you focus on saying that she'll be alright or making sure she is not hurt (when she is clearly not), she'll dwell on that, start crying and stop doing what she is doing.

This story and the other links published here got me thinking about this. Innate ability is clearly important when you really think about it, but what I want to instill is this idea that it's normal and natural to fail along the way to success and that even if you are really talented at something, you'll have setbacks.

Re: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

#160

Post by pwthornton » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

Part of the problem with telling your kid that they are smart is that most parents think their kids are smart. The average IQ is about 100. It's one thing to tell an objectively intelligent person that they are intelligent, but it's quite another to get someone who doesn't have great innate gifts thinking that they do and then perhaps causing them not to work harder.

You can outwork someone and make up for an intellectual or physical disadvantage, but you may be less inclined to do so if people tell you that you have greatly innate gifts than you do.

Let's also keep in mind that a lot of very intelligent people are able to focus and think more abstractly, allowing them to be very efficient workers. I just see a lot of parents telling their kids how smart they are, thinking it will build up their self esteem, but I wonder if this is counterproductive if they are actually of more average intelligence.