.. our work shows that praising a childs intelligence makes a child fragile and defensive. So, too, does generic praise that suggests a stable trait, such as “You are a good artist.” Praise can be very valuable, however, if it is carefully worded. Praise for the specific process a child used to accomplish something fosters motivation and confidence by focusing children on the actions that lead to success. Such process praise may involve commending effort, strategies, focus, persistence in the face of difficulty, and willingness to take on challenges. The following are examples of such communications: You did a good job drawing. I like the detail you added to the peoples faces. You really studied for your social studies test. You read the material over several times, outlined it and tested yourself on it. It really worked! I like the way you tried a lot of different strategies on that math problem until you finally got it. That was a hard English assignment, but you stuck with it until you got it done. You stayed at your desk and kept your concentration. Thats great! I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work—doing the research, designing the apparatus, making the parts and building it. You are going to learn a lot of great things. Parents and teachers can also teach children to enjoy the process of learning by expressing positive views of challenges, effort and mistakes. Here are some examples: Boy, this is hard—this is fun. Oh, sorry, that was too easy—no fun. Lets do something more challenging that you can learn from. Lets all talk about what we struggled with today and learned from. Ill go first. Mistakes are so interesting. Heres a wonderful mistake. Lets see what we can learn from it. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: CAROL S. DWECK is Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:33:25 +0000
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