Supporting deep intrinsic motivation and growth mindset. “Good girl/good boy” “Great job!” “That was amazing!” “You are a genius!” … Surely positive reinforcements and praise is a good thing? It will encourage our children to show MORE of the good behaviour we want to see,, training the good behaviour, that is our job as a parent right?

Well…

Research has shown that how you praise your children has a powerful influence on their development. The Columbia University researchers Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck found that children who were praised for their intelligence, as compared to their effort, became overly focused on results. Following a failure, these same children persisted less, showed less enjoyment, attributed their failure to a lack of ability (which they believed they could not change), and performed poorly in future achievement efforts. Says Dweck: “Praising children for intelligence makes them fear difficulty because they begin to equate failure with stupidity.”

Too much praise of any sort can also be unhealthy. Research has found that students who were lavished with praise were more cautious in their responses to questions, had less confidence in their answers, were less persistent in difficult assignments, and less willing to share their ideas.

Isn’t that interesting! And when you dig deeper and really start to think about it, it actually really makes perfect sense.

Hear me out in the video above!