How Praise Affects Children

We as educators and parents want our children to grow up to be the best that they can be. Are we helping them when we tell that they are doing a good job on something or are we hurting them? Some research has shown that praising a child with words like “Good Job” or “Way to Go” is not helping them build their self-esteem or grow as individuals. We need to do more to help them grow as individuals and learners. According to Alfie Kohn (2001) “praise is a verbal reward” (p. 1). He states in his article “Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job” that praise is also controlling (Kohn, 2001) Have you ever been at a restaurant or out to local grocery store (or even said to your own kids) and hear if you will be good I will buy you a treat. Controlling? Yes controlling, but in the classroom do we use the same type of praise to get our students to do the same thing?

That question had me curious, which lead me to these questions: Is there a right or wrong way to praise? Does the way you praise a child make a difference? One of my personal goals as a third grade teacher is to help each one of the children leave my classroom knowing that they are special in their own unique way and that they have the power to conquer whatever obstacles the world throws at them. With that in mind, I use praise on a daily basis. I thought that what I was saying was helping the children, not just trying to control them. I thought the children needed to hear that from me. According to Alfie Kohn (2001) when you praise a child with “good job” you are telling the child how to feel not allowing them to make the decision for themselves. They become more reliant on you versus them internally making the decision for themselves. Think ...

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...g kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn. This leads us to two kinds of mindsets that students can have that effect the way that they look at learning and growing: fixed mindset and growth mindset.

What is a Fixed Mindset

Fixed mindset is exactly what the phrase says: the person is fixed, doesn’t change, doesn’t grow, they are stuck. A student with a fixed mindset is concerned about how smart they are. They are worried about the final product or the grade. They view effort for someone who is incapable. They are more concerned about how they are going to be judged and may even lie about scores when they are not up to par (Briceno). In one of Carol S. Dweck (2006) studies, she found that by praising children with “You are so smart”, in the end, made them dumber and act dumber but claim they were smarter.