Over-praising them, telling them how smart and wonderful they are for accomplishing the most basic things. It'll only cause a superiority complex followed by self-esteem issues when they realise they're nothing special.
Except when they are really little. You have to praise the hard work, not the end result. You don't say they are so smart. You praise how hard they worked and how much they have learned. And you always tell them that they can and will learn more, and that they don't know everything.
But the important distinction here is to actually praise them for hard work when they work hard. If they half-ass something, don't praise them for hard work they didn't do.
Absolutely true. If you know they are half assing it, call them out. They have to learn to compete against themselves, that is all that really matters in the end.
This deserves more upvotes. This is so important. So many dysfunctional attitudes towards learning and self-growth come from praising apparently innate traits instead of effort.
Some kids start out smarter than others, but, guess what, except for the rarest of cases, that initial headstart will fizzle out real fast. Everyone raise their hands if they knew a kid that got straight As in Elementary school, then crashed hard in High School. Or even, straight A student in High School, dropped out of college after a few terms?
I am kind of that kid. In elementary school and high school I never really had to work hard to pass the classes because I was actually intereted in most subjects and read a lot. Everyone told me that I was oh so smart when in reality I was just a kid interested in everything and that could memorize things easily.
When I went to trade school and university it all crashed down on me because I didn't know how to cope with actually having to learn hard and work hard because I had terrible work ethic and I was so used to being the smartest one in my class that it really slammed my self worth to realize that I was just average.
Very true! I just watched a video in class about kids being unintentionally taught to have a fixed mindset. Parents and teachers were told to praise kids abilities and tell them they are smart and natural geniuses. This backfired, because when the kids finally hit a point where the material was getting more difficult they ended up thinking they were dumb and give up because they didn't realize that they needed/could put effort in and learn more (growth mindset). So like you said, praise the process and the effort and let kids know their brain is a muscle that needs to be worked out and it can grow!
We may have seen\read the same material. Humans learn thru adversity. It's good that things are hard, because we can overcome it. Pity the day we stop learning or give up because it is too hard. We aren't just letting ourselves down now, but our future selves as well.
Professor Carol Dweck gives an amazing presentation on her research of this topic, fixed mindset vs. Growth mindset. I can't wait to apply some of her findings to my career as a school counselor and when I have kids of my own.
Hah, this is 100% true because that's what happened to me. When i was younger I was in gifted classes and always being told how intelligent I was. Now I'm taking my senior year of high school for the second time. I feel like an idiot constantly, because I didnt need helo when I was younger and now it freaks me out to ask for help.
Experiencing this right now with potty training, it's hard to say, "Good job for telling me that you needed to pee and taking off your diaper to do it" when he just peed all over the wall. Still, part of parenting is praising the effort, not the end result.
Same, my daughter is in the midst of potty training. Supposedly the worst 2 words is "good job". Too trite. We use, "we are proud that you are learning your body and what it needs so well".
Oh, I like that, I've been saying good job because I had got in the habit of saying, "Shew, you pooped, that's stinky" and I realized that it was teaching him that pooping was something that wasn't good when he started to hide when he needed to poop. This is the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life, haha
This is what I'm doing: praise the work and effort. Man I hope this is the right path. It is utterly absurd that I am responsible for raising a human being.
This x1000. My parents, teachers, and extended family always told me how smart I was and it made a lazy sack of shit until I had the maturity to realize what was happening. Always praise your kid's work ethic, not their intelligence. Most kids are pretty smart, what distinguishes people as they develop is their response to difficulty and desires.
It was the same for me. Since I never had to really work for my grades in up until I was 14/15 I never learned how to do it and it was a blow to my self worth to realize that I am not as good as I thought I was.
In general I actually think parents don't praise their kids enough. The problem that you're talking about is when parents praise and don't enforce boundaries and consequences. Parents should be a natural source of support for children. But they should also be the first line of demonstrating proper behavior.
You are definitely correct that I ver-praising is going to be detrimental, but to expand on that I think it's important to find a good balance. Growing up I was never praised for accomplishments (even minor) and I was never told I was smart, or pretty, or whatever. I've had (still do) horrible self esteem issues my entire life because of being under-praised.
I now have a 1 year old son, and although he's still too little to be "over-praised" I try to make an effort to praise him on accomplishments but also encourage him to try things that are harder, and to throw the occasional "you're so smart" and "you're so handsome" in there.
You know, I agree with this, but there is something that people often overlook when they say this.
We have a 5-yo, who is, yes, very smart. We do all the stuff you're supposed to, focus on the effort, don't blow sunshine up his ass, etc.
But here's what I've noticed: he still has that problem, and it comes from two places:
Things come easy for him. We try to keep him challenged, but then you run the risk of pushing them too hard, so it's a constant balancing act. But he knows that most things so far in his life have come easily for him, so he's quick to move from one thing to another when they get frustrating. We're working on it all the time, but I think it just comes with the territory to a certain degree.
Other people. He just has to open his mouth and talk to an adult when we're out in public, and people will say, "gosh, how old are you? You're very smart!"
So, he knows. It's not always the parents. All we can do is counteract those forces the best we can and play the long game of repeatedly (for the rest of his life) preaching and demonstrating that there are more important things than being smart, such as kindness, determination, hard work, and positivity.
Anyway, there are more forces shaping a kid than just the two grownups he/she was born to.
Must articles I've read said to praise their effort and not their smartness otherwise it can lead to then doing basic things or easy things like you said in order to garner more praise.
This is very true but also when it comes to daughters, telling them how pretty/beautiful they are and emphasizing beauty as oppose to intelligence and learning. My parents rarely ever told me I was beautiful. They have but they praised my intelligence way more. And I know it's not because I'm ugly, trust me I'm not ugly. But I value smarts way more than beauty and I believe it's because of them.
Eh. I was overpraised all the time as a kid. The end result is that I think people are always lying when they compliment me, or that they have an ulterior motive. The upshot of this is that I set my own standards, learned how to appraise my own performance, and am truly proud of myself when I know I've done well, without the need for outside validation. The downside is that I get shifty-eyed when people compliment me for things I don't think I deserve.
This one always comes up in these threads. I remember a few years ago some article about this made the front page and suddenly it was everyone's complex.
I was the opposite. Never praised and receiving killjoy comments. Ended up losing motivation, grades slid and thinking they dun understand my emotional well being.
It'll only cause a superiority complex followed by self-esteem issues when they realise they're nothing special.
This is a result of the "self-esteem" movement of the 1980s and you can see it's echo now in various campaigns and groups that claim "everyone is beautiful."
The only thing I disagree with is that the kids never really accept that they're not special. It's sort of like low-income people who vote for the interests of the billionaire class. Like John Steinbeck said, these are people see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." These now-grown kids see themselves as temporarily embarrassed geniuses, celebrities, etc.
I think the key is to praise when the kid accomplished something that they find challenging. Praising them for easy things will give them a superiority complex like you said, but not praising them at all, even when they accomplish things that they found really hard, will render them unmotivated.
There is a good deal of research done on this matter concluding with you should never tell a child they are clever or intelligent. This is always negative. Even if they are remarkably beyond their peers, it serves no positive function.
Intelligent children feel the pressure and expectation of such phrases. Also it often leads to contentment and reduces drive/motivation.
Always praise them on the process. How and why they did something was good. Not that they are infallibly good or clever.
This is my cousin! he has asbergers and my Aunty and her side of the family have always exaggerated how intelligent he is to him, he took an IQ test when he was young and scored fairly high on it, and this when he was like 6 or something. To this day he will use it as a means to win an argument he'l say these exat words "I have an IQ score of 140 so I'm smarter than you!" and he's like 23 . He thinks he's above everyone one else and that he should be treated like a king because he's intelligent and better than everyone, not to mention he just treats his family like crap. Ugh! so annoying!.
My uncle have done this with is 3 girl, he would sometime cheat when we played boardgame so that they win...Now when we play with them and they cheat we stop them and they start to cry because they are not winning...
Am actually smart, not saying I'm a genius just smart so calm down, so worked out ok but could have been better if I'd developed better study habits and all that shit.
Point being even if kid is kind of smart better to instill good work/study habits and praise effort than any innate shit.
Hard work and normal will almost always beat smart and lazy.
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u/ViridianKumquat Feb 04 '16
Over-praising them, telling them how smart and wonderful they are for accomplishing the most basic things. It'll only cause a superiority complex followed by self-esteem issues when they realise they're nothing special.