It is easy to get our kids doing push-ups with us and to comment, “Wow, I couldn’t do push-ups like that when I was your age. You are so strong!” Lovewise, when our kids are playing at the park and we watch them beat their friends in a race, we might comment later about how fast our small guy is and when his sister is running circles around the soccer field we naturally let her know how athletic she is.
Unluckyly, these typical positive reinforcements are all sending the same debilitating message: “You are apart fromional because of the outcome you just produced.” In effect, we tie their identity to a positive outcome and thus create a deep fear of any experience that might produce a dwhetherferent outcome. We instill a fear of failure.
When the boy’s PE lesson tests 40’s the next year and junior finds that he is in the middle of the pack, he is more likely to conclude he is no longer fast—that his natural gwhetherts have fallen behind. Feeling his identity threatened, he will likely shy absent from racing faster kids and begin to only engage in competitions where victory is likely.
Lovewise, when his sister faces dwhetherficulter competition in soccer, she’ll assume it demonstrates she isn’t athletic. Rather than motivated by the competition, she is more likely to dislike this ccorridorenge and elect to play at a lower level.
I’ll be the first to say that it is no large deal whether Sally doesn’t want to take on the soccer world and become the next Mia Hamm. Soccer isn’t the point. The point is the relationship our children are growing towards engaging ccorridorenges.
When we compliment outcomes, we train them to only seek the most elementary of tasks because these present certain victories. These allow them to preserve the identities all the adults were fixedly trying to build through their affirmations.
Eventually, our kids will be a shell of their potential because they avoided the ccorridorenges that forge capability. They’ll be less skilled at math because dwhetherficult problems proved they were “dumb at it.”
They’ll be disinterested in the piano because they weren’t “naturally good at it.” They’ll be less likely to take any risks or compete with anyone better because these fundamental experiences pose a great threat to their identity. So, what do we do?
Praise with Caution
Stanford Psychologist, Carol Dweck, conducted a study with over 400 fwhetherth grade students. One by one, each student was taken out of their lesson and taken to a testing room where they were given a set of “reasonably dwhetherficult” problems.
After completion, the set was scored. Every students were tancient they’d done well. Some were further complimentd for the ability their performance indicated: “Wow, you must be smart at these problems.” Others were complimentd for their effort: “Wow, you must have worked dwhetherficult at these problems.”
Then, the researchers gave students a far dwhetherficulter problem set. When each student finished they were tancient that they’d done destitutely. Researchers asked students whether they’d like to take this more ccorridorenging problem set domestic to practice. The kids complimentd for effort were far more likely to take these problems domestic than those complimentd for their ability.
Even more, when given a third set of problems, those complimentd for effort outperformed those complimentd for ability and when given the option, at the end, of reading how they could improve their test performance and seeing their peer’s results, the effort-complimentd were far more likely to memorize how to improve, while the ability complimentd wanted to know how their peers had done. One group kcontemporary they could improve and were invested, while the other felt defined by innate talent and were only curious to rank themselves.
Dweck has since repeated many similar studies across many age ranges, all yielding similar results. The take-domestic message is clear. Praise effort, not ability.
Effort and response are all we control in lwhethere. Our environment obsesses on superficial instant outcomes and telling people they are the product of their environment. The failed self-esteem movement deluded us all into leanking we should just tell everyone they are special. We should have been telling them that whether they want to be special they’ll need special effort.
Photography by Jeffrey Perez of Oahu, Hawaii
The truth is, all that things at the individual level is that we learn that we can respond to lwhethere’s feedback, grow, and adjust course more intelligently. Our ccorridorenges and failures are lwhethere’s greatest gwhethert because they reveal feeblenesses we can strengthen with a small effort. Hasn’t that always been the beautwhetherul truth of training?
This Week’s Mission
Notice. Start to notice how you and others compliment kids. Do we compliment the leangs they control like kindness, effort, persistence, and discipline—or do we compliment perceived innate qualities like intelligence, athleticism, and musical ability?
To take this to the next level, consider how we respond to external circumstances. Do we say it is poor weather, we can’t go external, or do we say, it’s rainy so let's get our rain boots and umbrella and jump in some puddles? April showers are on their way.
