Why Praising Your Kids is Bad

Occasionally a great article on parenting appears in the media. This one from New York Times magazine, I think, is a must-read for all parents out there:

How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise
By Po Bronson
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

It is a summary in lay terms of studies conducted by renown psychologist Carol Dweck on fifth-graders. Her findings apply to both girls and boys irrespective of their socioeconomic classes. These are a few points that I highlighted from the article (though I encourage you to read the full article yourself):

"When we praise children for their intelligence, we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed."

Parents tend to think that building their kids' self-esteem is very important for their future success in this hyper-competitive world. But meta-analysis on studies on self-esteem show that "having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement.It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.)"

"The continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.”"

To be effective, researchers have found, praise needs to be:
- specific and process-focused (After soccer games, I praised him for looking to pass, rather than just saying, “You played great.”)
- sincere (Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.)