"How Not to Talk to Your Kids"

I came across this article yesterday. It reminded me of a study I learned about in college (before I switched majors from education to English, again) that I've kept in the back of my mind all this time but hadn't fully put into practice in my parenting.

How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The inverse power of praise.

I printed it and gave it to Dear Husband to read. Husband responds with "I'll drink that Kool-Aid" and off we go.

I was particularly struck by this comment (emphasis added):

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.

So, after an afternoon of the girls being immersed in drawing and coloring, Makenna presents a picture for me to look at—and here is where I'm supposed to gush, "Oh, isn't it beautiful. What a great artist you are" (and really, she is). But instead I smile, admire the picture and say, "Makenna, you must have worked really hard on that and I like how careful you were to use your best handwriting on the title." She seemed pleased, but she added "I'm not very good at drawing." Hmm. I think there might be something to that article. This was her fishing for the accustomed comment which I didn't give. We’ll see what comes of it—but I found it hard for me to break the “praise habit” and rethink a response, which made me consider how I may be the one addicted to that praise.

Now, I’m looking for an opportunity to work in the “Brain is a muscle” discussion.