Effort, Spirit and Opportunity
Ok, I’m coming really late to this discussion, but I really liked Penguin Unearthed’s comments on the research about how it’s better to praise effort than results. I had a reaction similar to Phantom Scribbler’s to the New York Magazine article that kicked off much blog discussion — I’m pretty sure that no one is going to break their kids by praising them the wrong way.
But the idea rang true that kids who are always praised for their smartness — particularly if they don’t feel smart — might get afraid to do anything that might show that they’re not so smart after all. Among adults, it’s the same phenomenon sometimes called the Imposter Syndrome. (This is supposedly far more common among women than men, but I think that’s probably a story for another post.)
I definitely worry about this for D, who already shows serious perfectionist tendencies, and an unwillingness to do things that he can’t do well. I actually think this is at least in part a matter of innate temperament — we’re talking about a kid who didn’t take his first steps until 15 months, and then was walking without hesitation within days. So I was very pleased that the imax film we saw today about the Mars rovers emphasized the parachutes shredding upon impact in the tests and the frantic work that the scientists needed to do to make them work before launch. D adored it, and I was wiping tears from my eyes.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
My daughter beats herself up about making mistakes, and we have been spending a lot of time working on it. There are times when I just wish I could go back and undo whatever we did to make her this way, or at least to have realized it sooner, and start working on it sooner. It is extremely frustrating, and more than a little sad, to see this seven-year-old girl get angry at herself for making one mistake on math homework.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:30 am
How funny — LG adores that movie, too, and I never thought of it in that light before.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Having read the book, and gone through google scholar to read some of the research the book and the articles were based on, I’m actually pretty sure one could break one’s kids by praising them the wrong way–if it was consistent, and if “broken” is defined as “making them afraid of effort and teaching them that criticism is intolerable.” The effects of being praised for intelligence or any innate ability were consistent for kids of any ability level (meaning telling someone who IS smart that they’re smart will have the same effect as telling someone who ISN’T smart that they’re smart, in lowering their performance on future tests that measure intelligence). And it held true, too, across many fields of endeavour–artistic, athletic, interpersonal, leadership, etc.
I’m going to review the book next week, but suffice it to say that I found it convincing enough to change the way I talk to Frances.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
The New York Magazine article really struck a chord with me, because I had long been perturbed by what seemed to me to be excessive praise coming from my in-laws for things over which our kids had no control (so smart, so handsome, etc.). It was worse with kid #1, because he spent more time with them early on.
Sure enough, as a little kid and in the lower grades, he did fine with the things that came easily to him (he started reading with almost no effort and his first year or two playing piano were very easy for him), but as soon as something required effort, he lost interest or wanted to quit or got incredibly frustrated.
So I was particularly glad when my mother in law came across that article on her own and showed some interest in it, even if it may take more than one article to break the habit.
One bigger-picture thing I think it points to is that you can avoid quite a few things that are not great for kids by not saying to or in front of them things that you wouldn’t say about an adult to or in front of that adult. I always hated, as a child, adults who would talk to each other in front of me about my looks, for example, in a way you NEVER would about a fellow adult. Similarly, I don’t think that when an adult we know does well at something, we start gushing to them about how they’re such a smart _person_ (with the implication that their success is just something that came naturally to them)–we tend to praise their hard work in accomplishing what they’ve accomplished, or say they’ve done a good job.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Another idea is to model trying new things for and with your kids. Emphasize effort by learning new things for the fun of it and demonstrate how to “look bad” gracefully. 😉
Nan
April 6th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
My daughter sounds exactly like Landismom’s daughter, and I’m working hard to really listen to the praise I offer. Mira doesn’t like to play board games, and I believe this is because she’s afraid of losing (despite the fact that she usually doesn’t). I’m the poster-mother for using the wrong type of praise, and I hope it’s not too late to undo it.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Thank you Mary Garth for your imput! Very helpful.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Just stumbled across this blog, and was very happy to do so! That’s mostly what I wanted to say. But also: yes, I was very intrigued by this who conversation when I first saw the article in the NYT. Based on my test-case of one–myself–I think the study results really ring true. The study really articulated some of what I felt about success and failure as a child.
Also, I’m currently in graduate school, and I’m often frustrated by the cult of “smartness” that predominates in academia: being “smart” is well and good, and I like to be around smart people. But smartness doesn’t necessarily guarantee that someone has something meaningful to say, or the dilligence to say it carefully. I hope to keep all this in mind as I raise my bebe son.
anyway, cheers! nice to meet you.