Some experts contend that focusing on children’s abilities (”You’re smart” or “You’re a good athlete”) can undermine children by making them feel like failures when they don’t succeed. Some studies show that praising the effort is a better way to encourage children.

“It flies in the face of what most parents believe,” acknowledges Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stamford University and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Succes, who has researched praise. “They think that the greatest gift you can give your child is self-esteem in the form of praising their abilities and talents … I’m not arguing that self-esteem is not a good thing, I’m just saying that you don’t give it to children in this way.”

And it’s true that the research seems counter-intuitive. Who would think, for example, that telling kids they’re smart before a test might make them do worse? But experiments with 400 fifth-graders found that was the case. The experiment compared a group of children who were praised for being smart with a group who were praised for trying hard…

The children who were praised for trying hard took on more challenging tasks and ultimately did better on tests than the children praised for being smart.

In fact, 90 percent of the children who were praised for their effort improved their scores. When asked to report their scores, 40 percent of the children praised for being smart lied. The children praised for their efforts didn’t.

“We found that praising children for their effort or their strategy is really effective because not only is that something they have more control over but it teaches them about the steps that lead to success,” explains Dweck. “So the students who are praised for their effort wanted the challenge, they were resilient in the face of setbacks, they were honest about the difficulty.” …

Sources: The Times
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