This week, I want to talk to you a little bit about praise. There are many different ways to praise our children, and while some are not necessarily better than others, some are more meaningful.
Meaningful praise that supports a growth mindset
While there's really nothing wrong with any praise—it's positive reinforcement—I just want to give you a quick tip to help make sure that you're instilling some of the more meaningful praise and praise that promotes a growth mindset in your child instead of the more superficial type of praise, which we all do as parents. I'll distinguish those for you real quick.
Usually, we tend to give quick, generic, or subjective praise to our children, things like “good job,” “well done,” “I love it,” and “It's beautiful,” referring to maybe a picture that they've colored or something like that.
There is nothing wrong with this at all, but if it is a vague and subjective form of praise in which we express our own personal opinion about it, it can tend to leave children without specific takeaways for the basis of the praise or also to send them the message that the end goal is to please us. Instead of being about their accomplishments or achievements, it becomes more about making us happy. If this is overdone, some children have a tendency to internalize that more than others.
But there is a more meaningful way to praise your child: by focusing on two key aspects of whatever it is that you're praising them for. So I'll share that with you.
The power of specific praise in child development
You want to try to notice specific details and call out specific qualities related to either the content of what they've done or their effort.
And that's the one I think is most underused: really focusing on a child's effort rather than subjective observations like “that's beautiful.”
So I'll give you some examples.
If your child's painted or colored a picture, instead of saying, “Oh, that's beautiful, I love it,” you can say, “Wow, you have used such bright colors,” or “You've chosen primary colors here,” and “that's a very bold color choice.”
You can also insert subjective praise there: “I think that's beautiful,” “I think that works,” or “Those colors work really well together.”
But you've pointed out a specific thing. Not only does that add to the vocabulary you're giving your child, but you're also telling them why. When we do something well, we all like to know exactly what it was. And so you're giving them something specific to hold onto and to notice about what it is that they did that is working there.
Praising effort over results: teaching perseverance
The other side of this coin is to praise their effort. Sometimes, this works especially well when they haven't necessarily been successful at something. For instance, some children, when they're coloring a picture, don't care about coloring in the lines at all, but some do. They may have colored a picture and not be happy with the result, and you want to praise it anyway, but you don't necessarily want to give them false praise either.
Children are the best detectors of false praise in the world. So if they're not happy with the end result, maybe they're trying to build an enormous block tower, and it just keeps falling, and they haven't had their successful result at the end that they're looking for. What you can always praise is your child's effort. So, noticing that and saying, “I see that you've worked very hard on that block tower, and the way that you kept trying, again and again, shows so much perseverance”.
When you praise, you can always take the time to notice the effort your child has put in. If your child doesn't think it's beautiful, take the time to point out to them the effort they put into it instead.
Again, with the block tower, help them reframe that by praising them for the effort and perseverance they put into that project.
Make praise a tool for growth, not just approval
So, those are a couple of ideas to focus on when you're offering praise that make it more specific, more personal, and more actionable for your child. This helps them really internalize the praise and think more positively about their own abilities and potential to improve.
Anytime you praise your child, try to build the habit of offering one specific detail about either the content of what they've done or the effort they've put into something. That will go a long way to making praise much more meaningful to your child and to foster a growth mindset in them where they're really focused on their strengths and their ability to build more strengths and new strengths instead of on subjective praise of trying to please whether it's you or a teacher, or just receiving those accolades from other people.