The New York Times

October, 2007

Are Kids Getting Too Much Praise?

by Tara Parker-Pope

Are Kids Getting Too Much Praise? An excess of praise may be doing kids more harm than good.

A cover story in this month's Scholastic Instructor magazine asks

whether kids today are "overpraised.'' The concern is that by focusing

on self-esteem and confidence building, parents and teachers may be

giving real goals and achievement short shrift. The article cites a

recent study in which eighth graders in Korea and the United States were

asked whether they were good at math. Among the American students, 39

percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of

the Korean eighth graders. But the reality was somewhat different. The

Korean kids scored far better in math than the over-confident American

students.

The notion that you can praise a kid too much is heresy to parents and

teachers who have long believed that building self-esteem should be the

cornerstone of education. If kids believe in themselves, the thinking

goes, achievement will naturally follow. But confidence doesn't always

produce better students. Scholastic cites a 2006 report on education

from the Brookings Institution's Brown Center that found that countries

in which families and schools emphasize self-esteem for students lag

behind cultures where self-esteem isn't a major focus.

The problem with this "rah-rah mentality,'' as the magazine describes

it, is that it can take away the sense of satisfaction that comes from

genuine achievement. "Self-esteem is based on real accomplishments,"

Robert Brooks, faculty psychologist at Harvard Medical School , told the

magazine. "It's all about letting kids shine in a realistic way."

The downside of too much praise is that kids may start to focus on the

reward rather than what they are learning. Worse, failure can be

devastating and confusing for a student whose confidence is based on an

inflated ego, rather than his or her actual abilities, the magazine

notes. This doesn't mean we shouldn't praise our kids or that teachers

shouldn't try to engender self-confidence. But self-esteem should be the

result of good grades and achievement, not false accomplishments.

Last month, Cognitive Daily reported that parents and teachers should be

specific rather than general when they dispense praise. An example of

general praise is telling a child, "You're smart.'' Specific praise

would be to say, "You did a good job reading,'' or "You did great on

your math test.'' Kids who receive general praise about their abilities

are more likely to exhibit "helpless" behavior when they encounter

problems with learning, compared with kids who receive specific praise

about their achievement on a task. The reason: a child who knows she's a

smart girl feels defeated if she has trouble reading a sentence. But a

child who has been told she is a good reader is more likely to have

confidence in that specific ability and work a little harder to tackle a

more difficult book.

Ken Pope

8 Bogus Apologies - Ethics, Critical Thinking, & Language:

<http://kspope.com/apologies.php>

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

--Abraham Lincoln