I've been mulling over New York Magazine's piece on the perils of praise all week. If you don't feel like reading it, it can be boiled down into two points:
1) Don't praise kids for who they are; praise them for what they do. As far as I can tell, this is standard teacher/parent advice. Don't say "that's a beautiful picture"; say "I like the way you used lots of colors in your picture"; or, even better, "tell me about your picture."
2) Research shows that kids who are praised for working hard, or who are given the impression that working hard is the reason for their achievement, do better than kids who are praised for being smart, or given the impression that they achieve because they are smart. In other words, the whole self-esteem movement may very well be bunk. Indeed, it may set kids up to fail, because, if they believe their achievement rests on their intelligence, then failing to achieve signals lack of intelligence, and this knowledge (presumably latent) makes them scared to try and fail.
I have to say this resonates for me. I am always worried about not being smart enough, and I definitely fall into the category of people who don't try as hard as they can for fear that their best effort will not be enough and thus will prove that they are not good enough.
Nevertheless, as a parent, I am ambivalent. I already do the politically correct variety of praise, but I hate the idea of not being able to tell my children they are smart, because I think they are, and I want them to know it and believe it. In other words, I want them not to be like me, but this research suggests that the tactic I am taking will turn them into me.
But then there is the fact that they are them, not me.
As I was mulling over this article, E, out of the blue, addressed the issue. "You know how to make yourself good?" she asked me at dinner, in a conversation about school. "Give yourself compliments before you even know if you're good or bad at it." Then she told a story about a boy in her class who said "Oh, I'm so bad at this," before they began a game, and was indeed bad at it, whereas she, E, thought she would be good, and was. Clearly a believer in the power of positive thinking, not to mention self-boosted self-esteem.
That night, I brought the topic up with M. I told her about the article and asked her what she thought. She said the argument doesn't make sense, because you have to work hard to be smart. "Like, some of it is your genes," she said, "but the rest is work." I think her "it" there is achievement, but overall this seems like a more holistic vision of the issues. When I asked her if she thinks she's smart, she said yes. When I asked her if she works hard, she said yes.
Where to go with this? I'm not quite sure. Perhaps I can make a deal with our entwined psyches: I'll work harder AND I'll keep telling them they're smart, and maybe we'll all turn out OK.
4 comments:
I have to admit, the article resonated with me in the way it resonated with you -- my mom told me I was really smart, and I thought success either came quickly or not at all, and not through hard work and fear of failing has been a pretty big fear. There was a review of a biography of Stanly Kaplan (please forgive all the "of"s in there) in the New Yorker a few years back that basically said if you work really hard you can get really good at what you're working at regardless of your talents. Talent I think does distinguish the pretty good from the OHMYGOD people, but that hard work, you can't really replace it and it can be pretty darn satisfying and rewarding (I've come to learn). From what you wrote, it sounds like the kind of praise you've given your kids so far - the politically correct reinforcement of explicit effort, what my husband called "coaching" after reading the article -- has worked pretty darn well. They're both feeling smart and feeling like working hard is a good thing. Plus there are probably a million non-verbal ways you let your kids know you think they're smart and generally terrific (and no one reading your blog with any regularity would think otherwise either)that they've picked up on, too. My kids are too young for me to be able to ask them about any of this, but I think I'm going to give the coaching-approach a try...but I have no idea how this will feel when it comes up for real and no clue how I'll handle however it feels.
One thing I found interesting about that article is that it fit well with some interesting stuff I've read about motivational theory -- which also suggests that being praised about being "good" at something (or having that as the desired outcome) tends to be more demotivating than being praised for the process (or having the process as the goal).
In sports, for example, those who are very acheivement oriented ("must do well") tend to do more poorly under pressure than those who are process-oriented ("must do better than last time"/"do my best"). Similarly, when kids were given a puzzle and then praised for their results or speed, they tended to not keep playing with the puzzle when the investigator left the room. On the other hand, kids who were simply encouraged to enjoy it or praised for their effort tended to keep seeing it as a game/challenge for themselves.
This was touched on briefly in the article but not much - however, I think the two aspects do dovetail together. Praising for outcome puts the focus on what other people perceive, rather than leaving the agency with the child. Thus, although you may enjoy telling your children that they are smart - but you're probably not doing them any favours or even instilling the kind of work ethic or joy in learning/doing that you'd hope to find.
But, of course, as with all parenting things - who am I to say?
(most info from a course by R. Koestner at McGill)
Here is my two very small cents. What I try to do is love them for being, and praise them for doing.
This is hard for me because sometimes I'm just like oh I love you so much and then it is also easy because I have been aware of the importance of genuine praise.
Umm, I am a bit confused though about 'love them for being and praise them for doing.' Is that like love them because they're there, and make sure you notice when they make an effort? Or is it an old saying that I missed? (Really.) It kinda misses a whole buncha stuff in between.
I am more of a love them whether they fuck up or not and encourage them to do what they like to do typa gal. Sort of Betty Crocker, but without the callous affect.
Post a Comment