Excessive praise may be doing kids more harm than good.
A new study shows that when kids are “overpraised,'’ they lose their will to do better.
In today’s modern society people appear to place to much focus on self-esteem, self-actualization and
confidence building, rather than on honesty and character building.
Parents and even some teachers may be giving real goals and achievements a rather short shrift.
Eighth graders in Korea and the United States were asked whether they were good at math.
Among the American students, 39 percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of the
Korean eighth graders.
But the reality was somewhat different;
The Korean kids scored far better in math than the over-confident American students.
The notion that you can praise a kid too much is heresy to parents and teachers who have long believed that
building self-esteem should be the cornerstone of education. And if kids believe in themselves, the thinking
goes, achievement will naturally follow.
However, confidence doesn't always produce better students, rather humility does.
"Scholastic cites" a 2006 report on education from the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center found that countries
in which families and schools emphasize self-esteem for students lag behind cultures where self-esteem isn’t a
major focus.
The problem with this “rah-rah mentality,'’ as the magazine describes it, is that it can take away the sense of
satisfaction that comes from genuine achievement.
“Self-esteem is based on real accomplishments,” Robert Brooks, faculty psychologist at Harvard Medical School,
told the magazine. “It’s all about letting kids shine in a realistic way.”
However, the downside of too much praise is that kids may start to focus on the reward rather than what they
are learning.
Worse, failure can be devastating and confusing for a student whose confidence is based on an inflated ego,
rather than on his or her actual abilities, the magazine notes.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't praise our kids or that teachers shouldn’t encourage self-confidence, but rather,
self-esteem should be the result of good grades and achievement, and not based on false accomplishments.
Parents and teachers should be specific rather than general when they dispense praise.
An example of general praise is telling a child, “You’re smart.'’
Specific praise would be to say, “You did a good job reading,'’ or “You did great on your math test.'’
Kids who receive general praise about their abilities are more likely to exhibit “helpless” behavior when they
encounter problems with learning, compared with kids who receive specific praise about their achievement on a
task.
The reason appears to be that when a child who knows she’s is a smart girl, feels defeated if she has trouble
reading a sentence. But a child who has been told she is a good reader is more likely to have confidence in that
specific ability and work a little harder to tackle a more difficult book.
In a nut shell; If we give positive feedback, followed by positive tips on betterment, we grant our children the
desire to further achieve, rather than rob them of a desire to improve.
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