Praise Junkies are Harming Their Kids

Parents praise their kids too much and their children are responding with a stunning lack of confidence in their ability to tackle new challenges.    Surprisingly, it's often criticism that conveys a positive belief in a child's ability to do better.

If you want your above average child to do well, don't praise them for their intelligence, but for their effort and their persistence.

So concludes Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia. According to a survey they conducted,
85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent.
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Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.
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Dweck’s research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern—they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. A raft of very alarming studies illustrate this.

The Power and Peril of Praising Your Kids

Also cited in the article is Dr. Roy Baumeister, a former proponent of  self-esteem.

After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”
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He will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements:

It doesn't take long for kids to discount praise and to consider it as a sign that they lack ability.

Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies where children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all—that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.