How to Praise

Effort-praised kids have fun even in the face of challenge and difficult learning.
Ability-praised kids often stop having fun and don’t perform as well.

Ask yourself (and perhaps your spouse or partner) how you use praise.

• How do you define success? Failure?
• How can you better cultivate the growth-mindset?
• Ask your kids whether or not they feel labeled. Does one feel like “the artist” or “the soccer player”?
• How do they feel about this? Find growth-mindset ways to compliment their strengths and interests.

Protect children from a life void of failure. Mistakes, mediocre grades, lost games: these are all events that send the message that there is room for improvement and opportunity for growth.

• Go around the table at dinner tonight and ask your kids to tell you about a mistake they made today.
• What did they learn from it?
• What do they want to learn or get better at?
• What will they do the next time they are in a similar situation?
• Ask about difficulties they faced, challenges they overcame, and things they learned.

Link to original article: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/tools/try-this/tryThis-praise&failure.pdf

Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a mother of two and the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Find more tips for raising happy kids at greatergoodparents.org.

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