I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important.<p>As a child, I was told I was smart and basically tried to coast as much as possible. I still have a lot of trouble learning how to do something new, especially because I have kind of internalized that I'm good at everything.
Perhaps there's a third way.<p>My parents didn't praise us so much for our efforts, nor for "achievements", but they were really excited about the things and projects we were doing. It was like the whole universe was full of exciting things to be discovered and mastered.<p>For example, if we were going down a river in a canoe, my dad wasn't talking about how much work we kids were doing, or how skilled we were. He was talking about the amazing eagles, herons, hawks, and water moccasins we were seeing, and how to best shoot the rapids, and what the difference wave shapes meant about the rocks underneath. We kids didn't learn and work at canoeing because we would be praised if we did well. We wanted to explore and master the river!<p>I've found in teaching that moving the focus off the student and onto whatever amazing thing we are learning about works really well - both with kids and adults.
This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Students who think they are "one of the dumb kids" do much worse than similar students who do not think that. These students will randomly guess the answer to a multiple choice[1] question if they don't instantly know the answer, even if the answer to the question was basically given in another question on the test.<p>Part of helping this kind of student is also praising them for effort rather than "smartness" and teaching them how to be good test takers (e.g. How to use the test against itself, how to "guess" wisely, etc).<p>[1] Debate on the pedagogical value of multiple choice tests is left as an exercise to the reader.
Having read the current child psych lit extensively, I can provide a boot-camp education on raising young'uns in one sentence:<p>"Your children don't want to be praised; they want to be <i>noticed.</i>"<p>'Dad/mom look at me / watch me do this / see what I did in class', etc, etc. all signify this — praise isn't what their psyche thirsts for, merely plain old attention. Done earnestly, giving attention takes time, and so has a 'cost' in adult's life that may be greater than you'd assume — see, the subtext of the tune "Cat's Cradle" — but the payoff is immeasurable.<p>/George's Dad
A couple of weeks ago someone introduced me to the idea not only asking your kids if everything is ok, but also ask what went wrong or failed.<p>At first i was a little afraid asking my kids those kind of things, but until now their reaction has been quite positive.
Anecdote:<p>I had always been told I was intelligent and clever. When it came to the exams everyone takes as a 15/16 year old in the UK I distinctly remember thinking to myself something like: "everyone has to be able to pass these exams, so I should be able to pass easily without much effort since I am one of the clever kids".<p>I didn't cheat, but my line of thought led me to a fairly disappointing set of results (as you'd expect).<p>Even now I think of myself as "smarter than the average bear", but I have the feeling that people were just telling me that because they were my parent/grand parent/friendly neighbor/aunt etc and now it is SET IN STONE IN MY BRAIN after years of reinforcement as a child.<p>What really confuses me though, is how can I think I am smarter than average, yet suffer from near constant impostor-syndrome? :-)
This concept from Carol Dweck's research is core to Allison Kaptur's keynote at the New Zealand Python User Group in 2015 [0]. It's a good talk regarding the importance of having a growth mindset.<p>If you prefer a written version, it's available on Allison Kaptur's website[1]. Previous discussion [2].<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo</a><p>[1]: <a href="http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/" rel="nofollow">http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strate...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669</a>
Being praised for being smart begets cheating because of the pressure to continue to be perceived as smart ("The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t."). The behavior praise stressses the past while the ability praises uphold an idea of permanent ability; perhaps the phrasing of the praise is significant too ("'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'") because the behavior praise adds a reference to the action; while, the ability praise does not yet implies so.
Definitely don't tell your kids that they are "talented". I took piano lessons for 10 years and hated every moment of it, because I was "talented."
Confidence from being told you're smart might be important for child development and performance in school.
Cheating and dishonesty are morally bad but most of the times this behavior leads to good outcome (but very bad sometimes). Looking at it another way, it's called hacking/gaming the system/bending the rules.<p>The results of the study show that kids are more likely to cheat, but they don't show it is bad for a successful and happy life.
A major rule in parenting is to praise effort and hard work which strengthens the 'internal locus of control' as opposed to seeing some positive action and then commenting on how smart they are. People view 'smarts' as something binary, you are or you aren't and therefore you are strengthening the external locus of control. Eventually when smarts aren't enough, and additional progress requires grit, those who were praised for their determination will excel, because they know it is within them. Others who were told they were smart will hate themselves for not being as smart as they thought. So goes the theory.
May be an unpopular take on this, but maybe something to think about. There are many things in school that amount to being "busy work" or pointless excercises. Is it possible that intellegent kids see through the bs and want to short cut what they perceive to be a waste of their time? Now the article is light on details about the kinds of cheating that occurs, so I dont know that fully explains it. I could see receiving praise and validation akin to a drug and wanting to continue receiving that.
Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. All makes sense to me though, I felt severe pressure for fitting into what I perceived as my 'role' growing up, and constantly being called smart created massive pressure to continue to be viewed that way.
Reminds me of chapters eighteen and nineteen of the Tao Te Ching. Specially the third and fourth lines of chapter eighteen:<p><i>"When wisdom and intelligence are born,/ The great pretense begins."</i><p>But I'm not entirely sure if it's a permissible interpretation of the text.
This surprises me since I wouldn't have guessed that 3 year olds know what "smart" means not to mention knowing that being smart is unrelated to effort. Could this effect actually be due to something else than growth vs innate mindset? My guess is that the teachers experience different emotions depending on word usage and that kids are affected by those emotions.<p>Previously I believed in these studies but this result makes me question the others as well since they could suffer from the same problem.
I was watching a coming of age Japanese movie yesterday (Flying Colors) and exactly this was said there. I didn't search it at the time, but I am glad to read this now and to have it answered.<p>As now I am teaching people I will strongly take it into consideration when praising, however I wonder how much it differs from adults and kids.
The most dangerous thing you can do for someone is set their expectations.<p>I think this is true for adults as well. Expectations add more pressure to meet a curtain performance that otherwise wouldn't be there. That along with a lack of solid stress coping mechanisms leads people to bend the rules.
The more we look at "smart" the more we find it's akin to "athletic", might be broadly true, but in practice doesn't mean much without hard work and discipline.<p>Praise the effort.
I don't like the idea that cheating is always a bad attribute. If a kid is able to play a game for its advantage and bend the rules, I respect that more than being able to follow the rules without thinking about how to get ahead.