Many of us are taught to praise our children and one another. "Good job," "You are special," "I like what you did," "I am proud of you." On it's surface, praising seems like a good idea. Certainly we want our kids to know they did well and that we are proud of them. The reality, however, is a bit more complicated. If we only praise, and generally praise, "good job," at that, studies have shown that we will create a child who believes they are entitled to hearing how great they are regardless of the outcome. The missing ingredient is encouragement, or guiding our youth to work hard for a given outcome. I like to say that we encourage the process and praise the product.
A study was done at Columbia University with elementary school children who took a hard test. Half were told they were smart and half were told they worked hard, after the results were in. Then, a few months later they were given another test. The students who were told they were smart did worse than their original scores. The students who were told they worked hard, did better. Working hard is it's own reward. When we begin early in our children's lives by helping them learn that outcomes are nice, but taking the time to make themselves or something better is even more important, the fact is, the outcomes will be better.
There is no question, this is more labor intensive at first. Yet, if we work hard at parenting we are modeling behavior to our children. Here are some ideas:
1. Encourage children as young as two, to help around the house; pouring dog food in the bowl, putting napkins on the table, putting laundry in the washer.
2. Sit with and help pre-schoolers learn to hop, skip and jump, recite ABCs, numbers, sing, etc.
3. When your child is struggling with a problem, help them figure out options; the operative word being help. Don't do it for them; do it with them.
4. Mistakes are vehicles for learning. When your child makes a mistake, smile, let them know we all make mistakes and ask what they can learn from this one. Then help them learn the lesson.
5. Make sure to praise them intermittently for specific behaviors: "The way you were determined to make that goal was so admirable," "I really enjoy how your voice sounds so beautiful when you sing," "Thank-you for the work you put into setting the table."
Encouragement and praise are relatively easy parenting tools that go a long way in developing healthy, industrious youth.
