Hurting Your Kids with Praise?
March 1st, 2007 by phyllis
One of the most important principles in the STEP (Systematic Training for Effective Parenting) approach is using encouragement instead of praise when giving positive messages to your children. Since the 1970’s there has been a big push toward finding ways to help children achieve positive self-esteem. As a result many parents, coaches and teachers eliminated just about any reference to a child’s performance and instead gave praise in equal measure to all children. This led in some cases to ending competitive sports and rewarding children in the same way no matter what the outcome.
In my online classes I find many parents struggle with the distinction between encouragement and. Everyone wants to do the right thing that will enhance a child’s self-esteem. But the use of praise can actually diminish a child’s self-esteem when it is used to acknowledge that a child’s value is dependent on his performance or for some innate ability like his intelligence. Encouragement is given freely and acknowledges the child’s inherent value as a person.
An example of praise is when a child does well on a test and his parents give him strokes for his intellect and tell him how smart he is. If this is done often enough, the child starts to value himself because he is smart. Then, if he fails at something requiring him to “be smart” this is a huge blow to his self-esteem and can actually make him fearful of trying new things because he might fail.
Encouragement is acknowledging effort and that the child is loved just because he is here. Encouragement is like unconditional love; it does not have to be earned. Letting a child know that it is his effort to try out for the team or his effort in studying for the difficult test is what is important.
Now, there was a very interesting and I feel important study done on the effects of praise on children that supports what the psychologist Alfred Adler about the effects of praise. It is result of a study where 400 fifth graders were given a series of tests. The first test was easy and the children were randomly praised for their intelligence or their effort. Next the children were given a choice to take a test that would be more difficult and the children were told they would learn a lot if that chose that one or they could take a test that was easy like the first one. Of the children who had been praised for effort 90% chose to take the harder test. Of the children who were praised for their intelligence, the majority of them chose to take the easier test. The next test was given to all the children and was designed so that all of them would fail. The children who were praised for effort gave it their best shot assuming only that they needed to work hard to do better. The children praised for intelligence felt their failure was due to the fact that they really were not smart enough.
The real difference showed up when the final test was given and was as easy as the first one. Those with praise for effort did 30% better than they did on the first test but those praised for effort did 20% worse than they did on the first one.
I encourage you to read the entire report here: How Not to Talk to Your Kids
So, what does this tell you about how to be supportive of your children? How to help them discover their unique gifts and reach their full potential? I will be talking more about the importance of learning how to be encouraging without praise in future posts.
2 Responses to “Hurting Your Kids with Praise?”
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Praise the process, not the outcome! Very true, we both read the same New York Magazine article on this topic. It takes some time though to get your mind wrapped around how to actually implement this in real life. I find I’ve been so used to rewarding/praising good news, I have to actively think on how to encourage/praise the effort.
I think it is best to avoid rules such as “use encouragement, not praise” when raising children. The concept of being thoughtful and reflective of what you are conveying through praise you may offer is a good one.
For example, if a child is working on not running away from the mother when at the grocery store, and he/she manages to do a good job of sticking close to Mom while she gets the shopping done, letting the child know what a good job he/she did can be very useful, e.g., “I really liked how you stayed close by me today while we were shopping, you helped make the shopping trip easy and quick!” Being specific about the praise and appreciative for a job well done is very helpful to children.
I would agree that indiscriminate praise, such as “you’re special because you can use a scissors,” or “everyone is a superstar in this classroom” can be empty, meaningless phrases that don’t really help children.
I believe children need specific praise for behaviors that parents want to reinforce and support, as well as encouragement for the efforts that children make to do the right thing.