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The Power of Constructive Praise

3/25/2014

We recently posted about the benefits of constructively praising children by acknowledging their effort rather than blanketing them with gratuitous comments like: “You’re smart” “You’re good at that” and “Good job!” Po Bronson, author of Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children, presents fascinating evidence for this approach here.

As grandparents, we too are rethinking the ways in which we praise. A recent weekend began with our grandson becoming frustrated when he was unable to complete tasks easily (from building a train track to shooting a basketball). His refrain of despair in such situations: "I can't do it!" So as a family, we committed to reinforcing effort vs. results: “It makes sense that you can’t do it yet—you only practiced a few times.” Or: “I noticed that when you were having trouble putting the track together you kept trying to figure it out and then you realized you just needed to turn that one piece around.” By the end of the weekend, after six missed basketball shots in a row, he said: "I just haven't practiced enough to get it right so I need to keep trying." Pretty amazing!

We want to hear: Are you rethinking the ways in which you praise your kids/grandkids—or perhaps youngsters that you teach or coach? What kinds of results are you having? Share your responses to the weekly discussion question here.

3 Comments

Gregg Miller link

3/25/2014 03:50:28 am

My 5.5 yr old granddaughter played golf with my daughter (her mom) who played college golf. 5 yr old said, Grand dude, I putted as low as 4 to 12 on some holes, often 6-7. I said, "what did you think"? I had fun. I can do better. I have to work at it. I said did you cry? She said, "No way, no reason to cry" I said of course not. there are good days and bad days. She said her mom was frustrated playing (1st time out due to winter) because her mom did not play well. I said , "we can't always w/o practicing" and was made aware even a 5 yr old can tell when a parent is not displaying neutral actions as in the case of her mom showing frustration.
Thanks Dr and Dr,
Gregg Miller

susan

3/26/2014 12:34:19 am

Thanks Greg. Amazing what a 5.5 year old can pick up on! That level of nonverbal nuance is quite impressive. Guess this young one has a keen eye for such messages.

Carole Sterry

3/25/2014 03:51:08 am

I learned years ago the strategy of replacing "good job" with naming what you see. When we say "Good job" to a child they often don't know exactly what was good about it. If we really want to see a behavior repeated, we need to show that we recognize what the behavior was. Examples are: "You tried four different puzzle pieces before you found the right one!" or "before you asked for help!", "You used lots of different colors in this picture!", "You remembered to take turns and share the toys!" "You read a lot of that story by yourself!" It can be hard to stop yourself from saying "Good job!" If you slip up, be sure to follow "Good job!" with a statement of what was so good about it. Sometimes it's best to just say "Thank you for...." instead of "Good job!"

As a teacher, I saw the damage to children who had been told they were smart and struggled to live up to that label or refused to even try. I worked with one gifted ten year old who would not do his school work for fear of getting a "wrong" answer. I worked with a gifted kindergartner who had to be first, had to be called on first and refused to participate in learning activities.

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The Power of Constructive Praise

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