The Inverse Power of Praise-Part Two
This week I’m summarizing the book, Nurture Shock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Yesterday’s post was about how praising our children the wrong way can backfire, actually making our children less confidant. Today, fifteen ways to properly encourage children, Nurture Shock style.
Fifteen Ways to Encourage Children
1. Praise the effort rather than the intelligence.
2. Help kids understand that intelligence can be developed. Research shows that students who believe this do better in study habits and grades. Math scores improved with a test group who were given a short lesson on how the brain is a muscle and can grow smarter with exercise.
3. Praise for something specific.
4. Praise must be sincere.
5. Children age 12 and up feel that praise means you aren’t doing well, but are actually lacking in ability, thus the need for more encouragement. Ironically, teens feel a teacher’s criticism “conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.”
6. Praise a skill or talent, and realize that if you have praised your child insincerely in the past, they will suspect even genuine praise.
7. “Excessive praise also distorts children’s motivation; they begin doing things merely to hear the praise, losing sight of intrinsic enjoyment.” Praised students will drop a class rather than receive an average grade and are more dependent on teacher clues of their progress.
8. High praise by parents leads to students who are burdened by the pressure this causes to the point a child can’t concentrate on much besides the grade they are going to receive.
9. Overly praised kids become highly competitive and often tear each other down. “Image maintenance becomes their primary concern.”
10. Cheating may become the only perceived solution when the student is faced with the option of increasing effort (which is felt to be a sign of failure), and failing. They need tools for dealing with failure. One group of students given a hard test meant to induce failure were given five minutes with their mothers (who had been told their child was performing below average) before a second test was taken. These interactions were recorded by hidden cameras. American mothers stayed positive and upbeat, while Chinese mothers kindly, but firmly admonished their children to look over their test or to concentrate better. On the second test, Chinese kids scored 33% better, while the American children had only half that gain.
11. Children need to learn to try, try again. Learning to regularly rebound from failure is something our children need to learn.
12. Intermittent reinforcement is a great motivator. A reward at every success UNmotivates children and undermines their persistence.
13. Don’t be a ‘praise junkie.’ By doing so, you set up your children’s brains for a chemical need for praise.
14. Recognize that overpraising your children can be one way to deal with parenting guilt.
15. “Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem–it robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself.”
Question: Are you a praise junkie? How can you tweak your parenting style to incorporate the Bronson/Merryman research?
