The Perils of Praise

When our first born came along we thought she was pretty darn smart and we praised her for just about everything she did. And for a very good reason… we thought it was our job and that her self-esteem depended on it! Her day was loaded with our evaluations - “Great tower you built!” “What a great little eater you are!” “Look at how many words you can say. You’re such a smart girl.”

By the time she was 3 years of age I noticed if things didn’t come quickly to her, she’d give up and say ‘I’m not good at this”. On top of that, we found her becoming increasingly dependent on our approval. We had the makings of a ‘praise seeking junkie’ on our hands.

I recognized the pattern - been there, done that. I too was hooked on the approval of others as a child. So I was determined that my daughter would not fall into the same trap. I discovered the fantastic option of Encouragement and began responding differently. I found it such an invaluable parenting skill that I produced “Encouragement Skills and the Perils of Praise” as part of my Audio Learning Series. It's packed with great tips and loads of alternatives to the use of Praise. If you think it's time to change gears with your child check it out!

A couple of years ago I read a great Reed and Stanford study called the Perils of Praise – How Not to Talk to Your Child by Psychologist Carol Dweck. They looked at the effect of praise on 400 fifth-graders in a dozen New York schools. It was pretty exciting to finally have some science to support what most of us in my field already believed - that certain Praise is detrimental.

Here are some key highlights from that study:

• Some children were praised for their intelligence. “You must be smart at this.”
• Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

Of those praised for their effort (I call this encouragement), 90% chose the harder set of puzzles in a non-verbal IQ test. They got very involved, willing to try every solution. They significantly improved.

Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easier tasks. The “smart” kids took the cop-out. They quit more easily and looked for more feedback from the instructors.

Dr. Robert Cloninger explained, a person that grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear. “The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through.”

When we praise children for their intelligence, they get this message:
· Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes – avoid the risk of being embarrassed.
· Failure is evidence that they weren’t really smart after all.
The over-praised kids also demonstrated these behaviours:
· They begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort.
· Image maintenance becomes their primary concern – they’re more competitive and more interested in tearing others down.
· Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure.
· Shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher and inflected speech so that answers had the intonation of questions.

I’ll leave you with my favourite quote from the study:
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control.”

I'd love to hear YOUR story. Did you grow up with Praise? Are you driven to get the approval of others? Are you handling your own child differently?

Warmly, Beverley

Beverley Cathcart-Ross is an author, speaker, certified parent educator, and co-founder of Parenting Network. Click here for Workshops for Spring 2011!