Raising Smart Kids with the Right Praise

Today your little one brought home a spelling test marked with a big red A*, and presented it to you with a giddy grin on his face. Naturally, you gush about it, tell him what a smart boy he is, and have the test stuck on the fridge with a magnet so the rest of the family can see his success as well.

Your baby gets the message loud and clear – intelligence is prized, and bringing proof of it home makes you very proud of him. He feels smart, he feels valued by his mommy, happy that she’s pleased with his intelligence, and works hard next time to keep bringing you these A*s.

Or that’s what you think.

On the contrary, something very different could be happening in your child’s mind.

The Negative Effects of the Wrong Type of Praise

One of the biggest mistakes many a well-meaning parent has made? Telling their child how intelligent, gifted or talented he is.

Researchers who conducted a social experiment showed that children who were constantly told they were ‘smart’ started perceiving intelligence as an innate gift that one either had or didn’t have. These children subsequently became more reluctant to take on more difficult challenges for fear that they may not succeed at them, and therefore be proved to be inadequate or ‘not smart’.

A parallel problem occurs when you laud your child over his innate talent, beauty or anything else that may be conceived as a genetic gift, and not something one has control over in his life.

Your child may feel great today because he did well on his test and had compliments about his intelligence showered on him – what happens the next time he doesn’t do so well, though?

His perception of himself gets shaken up – he starts wondering if he’s as smart as you think, or even if he’s smart at all. He fears your disappointment as well as his own.

On one hand, this could lead to him working harder in the future to ensure that this type of ‘defeat’ never happens again. But this is also a recipe for a constant, never-ending fear of failure, resulting in the kind of crippling anxiety Singaporean children are – sadly – very familiar with. We are a country with a stunning rate of youth and teen suicides, a huge proportion of which are attributed to students unable to deal with the crushing defeat of what they perceive as poor academic results.

On the other hand, this loss of faith in his own intelligence could cause him to forego the motivation to work hard for results – he isn’t smart anyway, so what’s the point of pretending to be?

Either way, the result isn’t what you want nor what’s ideal for him.

Doling Out the Right Sort of Praise

Now all this sounds very dire and scary – should you just keep a lid on praise and respond with nothing more than a cold ‘mmm’ when your child brings home good results then?

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work either. Your child might never feel like they’re good enough in your eyes, and develop a low sense of self-esteem.

So how does one well-meaning parent navigate these unbelievably tricky waters?

The secret is maybe not that much of a secret, but something that we need to remind ourselves of time and again.

The Best Type of Praise Focuses on the Effort, Not the Result.

Before you go crazy over Junior for his great results, ask if he studied for the test. If he did, then go right away and smother him with praise! But be careful to use the right words – let him know how proud you are of his diligence, discipline and hard work, and that he should keep the good work up. Stay away from generic compliments like ‘good boy!’ or ‘great work!’ as well, and be as specific as you can.

Keep to this even if he didn’t do so well after working hard, and assure him that what pleases you most is the effort he put in, not his eventual result or innate intelligence.

If he didn’t work hard on the test but did well anyway, try to resist the urge to endorse that – you could let him know you’re happy he did a good job, but he really should have studied for the test anyway.

Children form their perception of themselves through what others think of them – you, as their parent, naturally plays one of the most influential roles in what they eventually develop as their sense of self. Praise them for something they have control over – their perseverance, for example, or their self-discipline, determination or integrity.

That way they develop with those values at the core of their self-identity, and you get a strong, confident child who knows who he is and isn’t about to let the world tell him anything different.