Friday, May 04, 2007
Praise the effort
Praise Effort, not Intelligence. Or Praise the effort, not the outcome.
I'm hoping you've heard these phrases before. But if you haven't, you are not alone. It's not always widely known, but it's important to remember and here's why.
When your child does great on a test or basically did something great, the common mistake is to praise the outcome. Saying something like "Wow, I'm so proud that you won that race" or "You got an A+ on your test! That's fantastic, you are so smart". But praises that focus on the outcome can set your child up to not be able to handle failure, be fearful of attempting activities they may not do well in, and not put in much effort.
When you reward the outcome and ignore the process, you're setting your child up to fear failure. In life you learn more from your failures, than you do from success. Don't let your child be afraid to fail. Instead, praise the process, the effort, the attempt, the actual work that they do. Regardless if the outcome is a success or failure, if there is an honest attempt to do well reward and praise that. Remember the saying "If you don't succeed, try, try again".
If you are always rewarding the success, and your child sees that you are sad when they fail they'll start to build up a fear-avoidance to any activity they think they might not excel in. If they feel they might not do well in something, they may avoid it because they don't want to see you disappointed in them.
If your young toddler sees Mommy doing something, and tries to help but ends up making a mess. Don't yell at the mess they made, but praise their effort, tell them you know it's hard but you love that they are trying. If they try to help you, but that help turns out to be a hindrance and they see how upset you become, they'll avoid trying in the future.
Praise is important. Look for opportunities when they are being good. Sharing their toys with others. When they try to help out with something. As they get older, seeing them studying or putting forth an effort in their tasks.
Your praise should be sincere and warm. Remember when your children are young they seek your approval and your loving praise is one of the greatest gifts you can give them. Don't be stingy with it, just remember where to focus it on. Praise your child, but learn how to do it the right way.
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
http://schoolpsychology.blogspot.com/2007/02/praise-effort-not-intelligence.html
I'm hoping you've heard these phrases before. But if you haven't, you are not alone. It's not always widely known, but it's important to remember and here's why.
When your child does great on a test or basically did something great, the common mistake is to praise the outcome. Saying something like "Wow, I'm so proud that you won that race" or "You got an A+ on your test! That's fantastic, you are so smart". But praises that focus on the outcome can set your child up to not be able to handle failure, be fearful of attempting activities they may not do well in, and not put in much effort.
When you reward the outcome and ignore the process, you're setting your child up to fear failure. In life you learn more from your failures, than you do from success. Don't let your child be afraid to fail. Instead, praise the process, the effort, the attempt, the actual work that they do. Regardless if the outcome is a success or failure, if there is an honest attempt to do well reward and praise that. Remember the saying "If you don't succeed, try, try again".
If you are always rewarding the success, and your child sees that you are sad when they fail they'll start to build up a fear-avoidance to any activity they think they might not excel in. If they feel they might not do well in something, they may avoid it because they don't want to see you disappointed in them.
If your young toddler sees Mommy doing something, and tries to help but ends up making a mess. Don't yell at the mess they made, but praise their effort, tell them you know it's hard but you love that they are trying. If they try to help you, but that help turns out to be a hindrance and they see how upset you become, they'll avoid trying in the future.
Praise is important. Look for opportunities when they are being good. Sharing their toys with others. When they try to help out with something. As they get older, seeing them studying or putting forth an effort in their tasks.
Your praise should be sincere and warm. Remember when your children are young they seek your approval and your loving praise is one of the greatest gifts you can give them. Don't be stingy with it, just remember where to focus it on. Praise your child, but learn how to do it the right way.
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
http://schoolpsychology.blogspot.com/2007/02/praise-effort-not-intelligence.html
# posted by Rick @ 10:50 AM 
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