Praising Children, Risking Failure
I was thrilled to read a recent New York Magazine article by Po Bronson about children and the perils of praise. In “How Not to Talk to Your Kids”, the author reports findings from a new study involving fifth-graders from a dozen New York public schools. Children in the study were given an easy series of puzzles. Afterwards, each child was given his score. Half of them received brief praise for their intelligence, “You must be smart at this.” The other half were praised for effort, “You must have worked really hard.” The reactions of the children were astounding.
When given a choice between an easy or more difficult test the second time around, the children who had been told they were smart wimped-out, picking the easier test. The children praised for trying were up to the challenge of something harder.
Then, in a difficult third round of tests, all the children failed. The ‘effort’ children felt they could do better; they enjoyed the challenge and wanted to try again. They continued to show tenacity, perseverance, and improvement. The ‘smart’ kids seemed totally defeated and threw in the towel.
If a stranger’s praise has such power to influence a child, imagine the effects of a parent’s daily validation!
The article also examines children like Thomas, a boy with an IQ in the top 1% and no self-confidence. He balks when asked to try new skills like fractions or cursive, and even refuses to attempt them. He gives up if he doesn’t master a skill immediately. All his life he has been praised for his intelligence, but he has no courage or initiative. He is filled with self-doubt in his abilities. He won’t risk failure.
What intrigues me about this New York article is that by confirming the negative effects of praise, it also confirms the effect of ‘nurture.’ But where it falls short for me, like most of what I read about parenting (and I’ve been reading a lot lately), is that it does not address the critical first years of life, the time when dysfunctional (or highly functional) parent/child patterns of interaction are created.
Self-confidence begins in infancy. Yes, children are resilient and adaptable, and it is never too late to make adjustments in the way we parent. But we have a window of opportunity in the first years to help our child grow healthy emotional roots strong enough to endure the rollercoaster of life.
We use praise believing it bolsters our baby, makes him feel happy, capable, self-confident and loved. Those same good intentions also lead us to rush in to rescue our child from any perceived suffering, including possible disappointments, struggles, frustration, mistakes and especially failure.
But, our “keep ‘em happy”, “feel good” parenting backfires, because our children really need to experience all those “negatives” in order to learn to take them in stride. They need to know that struggle, frustration, and failure are not to be feared, but just a part of life. In fact, healthy learning, growth and success are impossible without them.
Believing in our child is not telling him, “You’re great. I believe in you”, and then fixing his fallen block tower. It is believing in him enough to let him risk making mistakes, to flounder, and fail as he experiments with his developing skills. Tenacity and perseverance are not traits a child grows into. They are traits babies are born with. We condition our children to quit trusting themselves by helping too much or too soon.
Praising our children is a knee-jerk reaction that takes constant self-reminders to control. I still find myself starting to say “Great job” to my children, and switching gears into, “You must be really proud of yourself!” It’s a fine distinction, but an important one. I feel lucky to have learned from infant expert Magda Gerber that the ability to persevere through frustration and struggle, and to then be acknowledged for one’s efforts is the real route to happiness and self-confidence. Continuous praise becomes empty, and there is never enough.
“Learning to fall, getting up again, and moving on, is the best preparation for life.” -Magda Gerber
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13 Responses to “Praising Children, Risking Failure”
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Wonderful article Janet. And, I wholly agree. I should maybe pick up something on Ms. Gerber to learn more as well, but I so enjoy learning through your articles. My only son is fully grown now, so this is just knowledge for me, not something I am going to put into immediate action. But knowledge is a great collection.
Your statement that “continuous praise becomes empty, and there is never enough” is so true. Coupling that with “‘learning to fall, getting up again, and moving on, is the best preparation for life,’” they affirm what I believe in – “Truth in all things.” It’s a long story not to be belabored here, but something I came to understand several years ago.
There are inherent and intrinsic truths in life. When we are over bearing, even with the best of intentions, we deny given truths. These truths begin at conception of life and evolve from our earliest formation. Once born, these truths are influenced for the time by exterior factors – me and you, the world around us, all the circumstances that prevail. From birth on, we will never escape exterior influence. But the truths remain, because they are our essence. Why do I say these things? Because that which is inherent cannot be altered. To attempt to do so causes conflict whether perceived or not.
To acknowledge failure or weakness is to acknowledge reality. We can all live within reality. To deny that which is reality creates a falsity that one with sufficient intellect may perceive as a judgment or condemnation. If I fail, but you deny it is so, I can only believe that you are ashamed of me. Whether I ever admit that to you or not, it may become part of me. Falsifying reality can never alter a given truth.
As children we can’t analyze that, but we can feel it. Later in life we may have to analyze it at hundreds of dollars an hour. There is nothing wrong with honesty. We are all different and therefore we will all succeed in some areas, not succeed in others. Both are acceptable, normal, and given truths.
I can apply my personal philosophy to any of your articles. A child is a person, a living being, they progress that a certain rate unique to them. We can push and prod, but they are who they are, and we are only a nuisance when we believe we can interfere with their individual timetable. We can assist, we can guide, we can be there to pick them up when they fall, but that’s it. Everything else belongs to them.
Wonderful article Janet, thank you.
Ed,
This is wonderful, THANK YOU! And you really need to start a blog!
Janet:
I love your lines: “Tenacity and perseverence are not traits a child grows into. They are traits babies are born with.” I see this so clearly with infants and toddlers who will try try try again. It’s an idea easily shared in a parent-infant class as we watch a baby make an effort to turn and reach, inching toward a ring of measuring spoons, finally grasping them and shaking them with such intensity and with an expression of joy and a full body wriggle of satisfaction.
If you liked that article, read the rest of Po Bronson’s book, Nuture Shock. I loved reading that book and have passed it on to others!
Yes, I’ve been meaning to read that…have heard wonderful things. Thanks!
Janet – love this article, thanks. Have just written a hugely description enthusiastic response and lost it all because I missed the captcha code thingy aaarrgh! so I’ll keep it short and say that I really agree with all the points in your article and as a parent whose worked hard on this model from the beginning, it’s so rewarding to watch my children’s (8 and 14) incredibly positive and stress free relationship with school and their learning in general.
Such important information to share, keep up the great writing
Oh gosh, Genevieve, I’m so sorry about my mercurial friend “captcha”. He’s ruined so many fabulous comments for me! But thank you for sharing your successes with your children and learning. I have noted the same “positive and stress free relationship with school and learning” with my 3 children. In fact, one of my proudest parenting moments was when my eldest (now 18) told me a few years ago that they did an activity in high school — drawing pictures about their feelings — and she realized that she had no stress compared to all of her friends, who drew stacks of books, etc…
Thanks for your kind words!
Janet,
Great post, my first I’ve read here. I agree completely, and in fact wrote about a related/similar topic on my blog a while back. It’s about how it’s in the small failures — the baby’s/child’s, yes, but also yours as a parent — that the child grows and learns. If you don’t fail your child a little bit (an infinitesimal bit when they’re infants, more and more as they get older) they don’t learn their own strength as well.
Anyway, I invite you to read it, on Confessions of a Mean Mommy:
http://www.confessionsofameanmommy.com/feel-like-a-failure-as-a-parent-you-may-be-doing-everything-exactly-right/
best,
Denise
Denise, thanks, I loved the post and enjoyed your site! What a relief for our kids to know that grown-ups make a ton of mistakes… And your son’s self-directed, autonomous snowman-making (or anything-else-making for that matter) is an unqualified success in my book! The “product” is inconsequential.
hi janet!
i’m digging through your archives in hopes of addressing a couple things that have been coming up very recently…
we are totally with you about praise and are very mindful about what we say – but more importantly how and why we say it – when a typical “good job” would otherwise be inserted into a situation.
what i’ve been running into lately is that dylan (age 2) is hearing “good job” all the time at the park (etc) from other parents.
that phrase is mindlessly and relentlessly thrown around by other people within earshot or directed to dylan and he has picked up on it and will often say “good job!” to himself or someone else. and it makes me cringe a little.
i will then follow up with “wow, d! you worked really hard to fit those pieces together” or “you did that yourself!” or “look at you swinging so high!” in an attempt to shift his energy from the “good job” and onto his process or just to a non-judgmental observation.
i would love to hear your thoughts on this…
trying not to “good job” in a “good jobbing” society!
thanks and love,
sara
Hi Sara! This is great… “not to good job in a good jobbing society”! And I could substitute that for a lot of other societal practices with infants and toddlers that I disagree with. I think the key here is that we can’t control everyone around us and even if we could, it would be incredibly exhausting!
Your son is excited about his new verbal skills and will naturally repeat what he hears. He hears the phrase in the positive light in which it is meant and knows it’s a compliment. That’s OK! His most profound influence by a mile is you. So, don’t worry what everyone else says, just keep doing the awesome job you’re doing. The best thing you can do is model those great responses: “wow, d! you worked really hard to fit those pieces together” or “you did that yourself!” Some of the people around you might even pick up on it.
Love to you,
Janet
thanks so much…
once again, your perspective is *just* what i needed!
xx
Glad to hear it!