How to Praise Children

06/26/2008

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
- Abraham Lincoln

In her article, "Pitfalls of Perfectionism" in Psychology Today (April 2008) Hara Estoff Marano observes...

"Perfectionism may be the ultimate self-defeating behavior. It turns people into slaves of success — but it keeps them focused on failure, dooming them to a lifetime of doubt and depression. It also winds up undermining achievement in the modern world."

In the article Marano offers these suggestions for praising children to support excellence rather than perfectionism...

Reward the process and the effort, not the talent or the product.
Praising effort gives kids (and adults) the keys to their own mental health. The brain is built so that it generates positive mood states — and subdues negative ones — as it works hard toward a meaningful goal.
Do not supply material rewards for achievement. Instead, congratulate your kid. Ask why things turned out so well and what your child attributes her success to. You want your child to understand exactly what efforts pay off in which situations. Supplying external rewards kills internal motivation and turns an activity into inspiration-crushing work.

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