Why too much praise may harm our kids [Independent.ie]
- Published: 07 April 2011
We're all guilty of it. "Wow! That picture is brilliant! You're so clever! You're such a great speller! You're so good at maths!"
Self-esteem is everything these days, so we all fall over ourselves trying to convince our kids that they can do no wrong. Success, we understand, will follow as night follows day.
But new research shows that the wrong kind of praise will actually set your child back. It can demoralise them and give them a fear of failure. Nurture Shock by science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman suggests that when it comes to rearing children, much of the accepted wisdom is backfiring.
"We tell kids 'you're so smart' or 'you're so clever' after a single test," says Merryman, discussing the inverse power of praise. "But what happens tomorrow when they don't get a perfect mark? 'I'm sorry, I guess you're not so clever after all'. We think that building self-esteem leads to more achievement, but what it actually does is it gets kids so attached to these labels that they don't want to do anything that would jeopardise them."
Full Story: www.independent.ie
