Why don\’t you praise your children for being smart?

Even before I had children, I read some experts’ advice: Don’t praise your children for being smart or awesome, but praise them for their hard work. As for why, I didn’t take it to heart at the time and forgot about it after reading it. After becoming a mother, I watched Rooney grow up step by step. I watched him gradually learn to crawl, run, jump, talk, and eat and dress by himself from a little baby who knew nothing and could only eat and sleep. Wearing clothes and shoes, I learned to sing, read and ride a bicycle. While I lamented the magic of life, I couldn\’t help praising him again and again for being awesome, smart and awesome. People without children may not understand this feeling. Isn’t it just to eat by yourself? Don\’t you just wear your own shirt? Isn’t that just learning how to ride a bicycle? Is there anything worth bragging about? But when you see it with your own eyes: the little baby who couldn\’t hold a spoon yesterday can actually put a spoonful of rice into his mouth accurately today; the little man who asked for help putting on his coat yesterday actually puts on his shirt by himself today The buttons are fastened; when the child who even fell down on the bicycle yesterday can actually ride around on the bicycle today, it is really difficult for you not to praise him! Especially after comparing with other people’s children, I found that my own children not only learn things quickly, do things quickly, and react quickly, but also often receive praise from teachers, relatives, and friends, I felt even more proud: maybe I A genius really was born. Who says you can\’t praise your child for being smart? Even though my child is smart, why can’t I appreciate my child from the bottom of my heart? After having this idea, I even threw the experts\’ advice behind me, and often praised Rooney unscrupulously for being smart and powerful with \”extreme admiration\” in his eyes. Until recently, Rooney was always unwilling to practice piano properly. After I had a formal chat with him and learned about his thoughts, I regretted not listening to expert advice earlier. Every Friday night, Rooney would sleep with me. That day, I asked him: \”Why don\’t you practice well recently?\” \”I practice well.\” \”But you only practice less than 20 times each time.\” I just wanted to play it in minutes.” “I know all those songs, it’s so easy!” he said a little proudly. \”You know how to play it, but you\’re not yet proficient at it, and your hand shape is always slumped and unstable. I want you to practice more not only to become proficient in playing the music, but also to fix the shape of your hand…\” I balabala. Preaching. \”Mom, you are so verbose, I get it! I\’m so smart and I\’ll practice it quickly, so don\’t worry.\” \”What\’s the use of just being smart without practicing hard? You know, there are many smart people in the world But to really learn a skill, you must practice hard…\” Hearing him boasting about his intelligence, I became anxious and tried to correct his thinking, but he seemed unwilling to listen. The conversation that day ended with my failure. end. Why can\’t we praise our children for being smart? Does it just make him complacent? Just when I was thinking about this problem, I saw a set of experiments by American psychologist Carol S. Dweck. Carol S. Dweck is a well-known developmental psychologist at Stanford University. Regarding praise,Regarding the question of how encouragement affects children\’s thinking and behavior, she and her team conducted a long-term study on 400 fifth-grade students in 20 schools in New York, and the results were surprising. The first round of testing in her experiment involved children completing a series of puzzle tasks independently. First, the researchers called one child out of the classroom at a time to take the first round of IQ testing. The test questions are very simple puzzles that almost all children can complete fairly well. After each child completed the test, the researcher told him the score, along with a word of encouragement or praise. The researchers randomly divided the children into two groups. One group of children received a compliment about IQ, that is, praise, such as, \”You are very talented in puzzles, you are very smart.\” The other group of children received a sentence. Praise for hard work, that is, encouragement, such as, \”You must have worked very hard just now, so you performed very well.\” Why only give one word of praise? \”We wanted to see how sensitive children were to encouragement or praise,\” Dweck explained. \”I had a hunch that a compliment would be enough to see the effect.\” After the second round of testing, the children took a second round of puzzle testing. There are two tests of different difficulty available, and they are free to choose which test they take. One test is harder, but you will learn something new in the process. The other is a simple test similar to the first round. It was found that 90% of the children who were praised for their efforts in the first round chose the more difficult task. Most of the children who were praised for being smart chose simple tasks. It can be seen that children who think they are smart do not like to face challenges. Why is this? Dweck wrote in the research report: \”When we praise children for being smart, we are telling them that in order to stay smart, don\’t take the risk of making mistakes.\” This is also the \”smart\” child in the experiment What to do: Keep looking smart while avoiding the risk of making a fool of yourself. The third round of testing In the third round of testing, all children took the same test. There was no choice. Dweck\’s team deliberately let the children suffer setbacks. The test was difficult and was at the first grade level. The kids predictably failed. Children who had previously received different types of praise had dramatically different reactions to failure. Children who had previously been praised for their hard work believed they failed because they didn\’t work hard enough. \”These kids were so engaged on the test and trying to solve the puzzle in a variety of ways,\” Dweck recalled, \”that several kids told me, \’This is my favorite test.\’\” And the kids who were praised for being smart Think that they failed because they were not smart enough. They were always nervous during the test, scratching their heads and feeling frustrated when they couldn\’t answer the questions. Round 4 Test The questions in Round 4 are as simple as those in Round 1. The scores of those children who were praised for their hard work improved by about 30% on this test compared with the first time. But for those children who were praised for their intelligence, their scores this time dropped by about 20% compared to the first time. Dweck has always suspected that praise may not have a good effect on children, but the results of this experiment were still far beyond her expectations. She explained: \”Encouragement means praising childrenWorking hard will give your children a feeling of being in control. Children will believe that success is in their own hands. On the contrary, praise, that is, praising children for being smart, is tantamount to telling them that success is not within their control. In this way, when they face failure, they are often helpless. \”Follow-up interview. In subsequent follow-up interviews with children, Dweck found that those children who believed that talent was the key to success would unconsciously underestimate the importance of hard work. These children would reason like this: I am smart, so, I don’t have to work that hard. They even think that working hard is stupid, as it is equivalent to admitting to everyone that you are not smart enough. Dweck’s experiment was repeated many times. She found that no matter what the family background of children, they cannot stand being praised for being smart. Frustration and a sense of failure. And boys and girls are the same, especially girls with good grades, who suffer the greatest blow. Even preschoolers are the same. Such praise will hurt them. When I first saw the results of this study, I was really shocked. Shocked! However, I am not doubting its authenticity, it is precisely because my personal experience confirms this result! I recall that when I was a child, I was also a top academic figure in the eyes of others. Every time I took the exam, my test scores were among the best in the school, and everyone praised me. I am smart, and I have been told that I have a bright future. I have heard it a lot, and I have become like Rooney now, complacent and unwilling to put too much energy into studying. When I come back from school every day, after finishing my homework, I just want to play and watch TV. . With a little cleverness, before high school, my grades were always among the best, so I was even more reluctant to work too hard on my studies. In my heart, I also looked down on those classmates who stayed up late to study. I always felt that this was not something smart people did. But I didn’t dare to try new things easily, and I didn’t dare to communicate with others on topics I was unfamiliar with, for fear of being seen through. It wasn’t until I went to high school in the county town, and then was admitted to the best university in the province, that I met a group of With another group of truly outstanding classmates, I gradually realized that I was just an ordinary person. At that time, my thinking had already solidified, and I would always make excuses for myself when encountering difficulties, thinking that I just didn’t have the talent in this area. , or they think it’s because they don’t have as good a family environment as others, or they think it’s because they don’t have as good appearance, character, luck, etc. In short, all problems have external causes, but they rarely think about: they are not even as good as others. I didn’t work half as hard! So, so far, I have not been able to become the promising person that everyone said. A netizen on Zhihu once said: When I was in my third year of high school, the class teacher said the most to me. The words are: \”If you don\’t study seriously now, it will really be a pity for your clever mind. \”I have always been proud of this sentence, but I don\’t know that this sentence is simply poison. It makes me indulge in showing off my intelligence and not dare to really work hard. I am afraid that although I work hard, I will not have the desired effect, and I am also afraid that I will not have the effect I want. They are as smart as others think. In fact, there are many smart people in this world, but not many who are willing to work hard continuously, so only a few succeed. The famous writer Yan Geling came back from abroad and could speak fluent English. Some people said It comes down to being smart. But she said: \”Intelligence is an unreliable thing. \”In her opinion, the most superior quality of a person is tenacity and tenacity. Only tenacity and tenacity can fully repay everything you have given: time, energy, and a whole period of hard and boring youth. I have been working in self-media for nearly a year , I agree with this more and more. Many self-media friends I know are super model workers. Some are female executives from Fortune 500 companies, and there is a 4-year-old baby who gets up at five o\’clock in the morning every day and never takes a lunch break. I kept writing and polishing online courses, and in half a year I increased the number of fans on my public account from 0 to 40,000 by myself; some are full-time mothers, raising three children by themselves, without elderly people or aunts to help, and they start after putting their children to sleep every night They work out, write, and run their own public accounts; some are super dads who work during the day and help their wives take care of their two children after work. They have also been admitted to doctoral students at well-known universities. The number of fans on their public accounts has increased from 30,000 to 100,000+ in half a year. I used to be troubled by the stagnation of public accounts and the continuous decline in reading volume. But after knowing the stories of these friends, I feel ashamed because I don’t even have one-tenth of their efforts! You only see other people on stage However, I have never thought about how much suffering and fatigue others have suffered in the audience! So, stop praising your children for being smart. Instead of saying, \”You are awesome, you are a good builder with building blocks. You are the architect of the future!\” \”, instead of saying \”Baby, I see you built a castle through your own hard work! \”; Instead of saying \”You are so smart and you did so well on the exam\”, it is better to say \”I see you have put in a lot of effort for this exam\”; Instead of saying \”You are so good and sensible\”, it is better to say \”Thank you\” \”I helped clean the floor, it\’s really clean.\” Praising the child for his efforts not only makes the child feel that his efforts are respected and recognized, but also makes the child believe that he has the power to make himself better.