Raising Little Angels is  a monthly post about the struggles, joys, confusions, and questions that come with parenting.  The tongue-in-cheek title refers to the fact that parenting often feels like anything but an angelic endeavor. After all, we don’t want little angels;  we want little saints!

OSASuBX1SGu4kb3ozvne_IMG_1088I know some amazing parents (note this sentence! We’ll come back to it). My guess is that the overwhelming majority of parents who read this blog are pretty amazing parents. There is, however, some disagreement, even among amazing parents, on how and whether to praise children. Some parents praise everything their child does: “Talulah! You drank all your milk and ate all of your peas. You’re such a good girl. You’re so good at eating your dinner.” Other parents hold the belief that praising their child for behaviors that they should engage in anyway will create spoiled little monsters. Both praising styles are on to something–the each hold buds of truth. Proper praise motivates children, while the wrong kind of praise causes negative consequences and self-defeating behavior.. More pointedly:Praise is good, but the wrong kind of praise can be harmful. Research by Carol Dweck, a psychologist out of Stanford, helps shed some light on the praise problem.

The type of praise that a parent gives a child helps shape the child’s mind-set concerning their abilities. Many people intuitively sense this, which is why children are praised so frequently. We want our children to be confident in their abilities. Many of us, however, fail to recognize that the type of praise which we shower on our children is creating what Dweck calls a fixed, rather than a growth mind-set about their abilities.Whether a child has a fixed or growth mind-set about their abilities and capabilities greatly influences the amount of effort they exert in tasks and the degree of motivation they experience to work through difficulties.

Children with a Fixed Mind-set 

Children with a fixed mind-set about their abilities tend to be concerned with others’ judgments. They worry whether people think they are smart or not-smart, good or not-good. Not surprisingly, these children tend to avoid situations in which they might make mistakes and reveal their deficiencies. When they do makes mistakes they tend to try and hide them rather than correct them.

These children often feel less capable or able when they have to exert effort. They believe that having to exert effort suggests that they may not possess the ability in question. They become afraid of effort because it seems to invalidate their innate abilities. Lastly, when faced with difficulties these children will tend to decrease their effort and look for alternative ways of succeeding (i.e. cheating and other such shortcuts).

Children with a Growth Mind-set

Children with a growth mind-set believe that effort is positive. They believe that their abilities and capabilities can grow with time and effort. They tend not to be afraid of being judged, which allows them to acknowledge and correct their mistakes and deficiencies rather than try to hide them. When these children encounter failure they increase their efforts and explore new strategies for overcoming the difficulty.

Praise the Process Not the Person

As noted above, the type of praise we give our children influences whether they have a fixed or growth mind-set.

When we praise the person of the child we tend to give them the sense that their abilities are fixed.  This kind of praise sounds like, “You are so smart,” “You are so generous,” “You’re so wonderful,” “Gosh, you’re great at baseball,” “Jeepers, you’re a great ballerina.” Children who receive lots of person praise often view their abilities and capabilities as fixed and static. They either have it or they do not. Person praise doesn’t increase confidence, motivation, or resilience, but rather saddles the child with the fixed mind-set (about their abilities) and all of tendencies that accompany that way of thinking.

beach-323453_640Process praise on the other hand invites kids to remain engaged, confident, and motivated because it highlights the potential for growth of the child’s abilities and capabilities.  Process praise focuses on acknowledging the child’s effort, engagement, perseverance, and improvement. In this way the child learns that effort and difficulty signal opportunities to exercise their growth capacity. They do not avoid or fear effort, but rather embrace their mistakes and deficiencies because they believe they can cultivate their abilities.

Now, our children do not have unlimited growth potential among their ability domains and it would be unhelpful to teach them that they did. The old, “You can do anything and be anything you want to be” simply isn’t true. I am never going to be able to do physics like Einstein and it wouldn’t have done me any good growing up if my mother had told me I could. We do, however, tend to have ranges of ability on most of the traits for which we give and receive praise. Process praise increases the likelihood that a child will push themselves to work at the upper end of their ability range, while developing beliefs about ability in general that increase resilience in the face of mistakes or failures.

Examples of Process Praise

-“You really worked hard on those math problems. You tried to solve it a few times and you tried different ways of solving it each time. That really worked.”

-“You made such an effort to share your toys with your brother/sister. You saw that he/she would really enjoy the toy, and you let him/her play with it. You were thinking about what he/she would like. That’s great!”

-“I like that you stepped up to the challenge of learning how to pass a soccer ball with the inside of your foot. It will take time to learn how to pass accurately–practicing each day in order to strengthen those muscles, but you are working hard and I can see your effort paying off already.”

If an activity comes easily to your child, you can acknowledge the ease with which they performed the activity and invite them to try something more challenging for the purpose of learning.  If on the other hand your child works hard but does not do well, you can acknowledge their hard work and effort and invite them to work together with you  in order to figure out what they did not understand. Process praise helps foster and encourage this attitude of curiosity and exploration.

I know some amazing parents, or rather I should say, parents who work really hard at affirming their children. They pour forth time and energy to be aware of their child’s needs and closely observe their child’s behavior. These parents try different strategies to engage their children, recognizing that each child is unique. They do a really great job.

So, if you are a parent praise your child! Shower them with praise. Just make sure that it is process praise.

Do you have any experience with process vs. person praise? Share your stories with us. We would love to hear from you.

About Matt Breuninger

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania where there is a bar and a church on every corner. I’m fortunate to have ended up in the Church and not the bar. Despite being raised a cradle Catholic it was not until my sophomore year of college that I experienced Christ’s love and love for Christ’s Church in a deep and meaningful way. Fascinated by the human heart in its desires, motivations, attractions, repulsions, brokenness and transcendence, I majored in English Literature as an undergraduate. Here, I found the human person woven together with lyrical beauty and shrouded in lovely words. Following a providential run in with a Thomistic monk in Belize I became interested in pursuing and study theology. I attended Ave Maria University–think Catholic Disney Land–where I received an M.A. in theology. During my studies I became fascinated by the insight into man’s mind that men like Augustine and Aquinas possessed. This interest led me to my current (and God willing final academic degree) in clinical psychology. Psychology seemed to be a place where truth of man’s nature could be meaningful brought together in a way that could benefit the human person–that is, help one to become more fully alive. I am currently in my fourth year of studies and will be defending my dissertation in the next few months. I live and work on a farm while attending school. So, if I am not teaching, taking classes or writing my dissertation, I am milking goats, planting crops, or catching chickens. I love black coffee, beautiful art, swimming in the Mediterranean, the Missionaries of Charity, Padre Pio, Mumford and Sons, quiet farm mornings, and most of all the Catholic faith in all of its splendor.

11 Thoughts on “Raising Little Angels: How to Properly Praise Your Child

  1. Thanks for the great post. We talk about this a lot in education too. When giving feedback on writing, praise is very important, but it needs to get the writer excited about revising. I feel like I’m learning to have a “growth” perspective for myself through working with student writers. Check out Donald Daiker’ “Learning to Praise.” It touches on similar ideas.

    • Matt Breuninger on March 1, 2015 at 7:55 pm said:

      Thanks for the comment Christopher. I think that’s a great point about writing! I’ve run into this teaching myself. Student often don’t realize that revising is an essential part of good writing. They tend to think a piece is either good or not. I’ll have to take a look at Daiker’s “Learning to Praise.” Thanks for the recommendation!

  2. kentgeordie on March 1, 2015 at 1:29 pm said:

    All this assumes that children need or want an endless running commentary on their doings, be it eating their peas, sharing their toys, or raising money for humanitarian interventions.
    My guess is that most don’t. My guess is that that most children would be glad if adults made less fuss. My guess is that children appreciate irony: Hmm, not bad! more than Oh my goodness, what a wonderful person you are.

    • Matt Breuninger on March 1, 2015 at 7:52 pm said:

      I hope I didn’t imply that children want a running commentary on what they are doing! The psychological equivalent of babbling like the pagans do. But, positive reinforcement (which is what process praise would be) is an important, well-established, and accepted principle in the learning and behavior literature. As to your guess, I’m inclined to disagree (mostly because of the pos.reinforcement lit.). My intuition and experience also speak to the contrary. Right before I read your comment a 5-year old girl came up to me and said, “Look Matt!” She showed me a picture she had drawn. This sort of thing happens all the time. Children often look for our attention in order to gain affirmation for either something they have done or something they see (“Mommy look at that!”) They want to be acknowledged and to have their experience affirmed–it is a way of learning about the world (what is safe, what is good, what is to be desire). As to your last point, that was the thrust of the article! The idea is not to say “Oh my goodness, what a wonderful person you are.” Your ironic point, “Hmm, not bad,” actually is more in line with process praise since it’s describing an action.

      Thanks for replying.

  3. Same principle (commenting on the process, not on the person) applies to how you can best help your parish priest. For example: Think twice before saying, “Father, you are the most boring homilist in the history of Christendom!” That does nothing whatever to help the poor priest. In addition to which, it implies something that cannot possibly be true, viz that you are familiar with the homiletic output of every Christian preacher since the Twelve Apostles! I mean … . get real!
    Instead, say something like this: “Father, your homily this morning was a tad less wretched than the one you gave last Sunday. I counted only 37 persons who fell asleep today, as opposed to 51 who nodded off last Sunday.”
    This will provide the priest with encouragement, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It will also give him an explicit mathematical goal towards which to aspire.

    • Matt Breuninger on March 1, 2015 at 7:57 pm said:

      Haha. Thanks Father. I hope that you have not been the recipient of such person praise!

    • Richard on March 2, 2015 at 3:02 am said:

      Many thanks for this courteous, thoughtful and detailed response.
      You are right to pull me up for my exaggerated talk of running commentary. Of course, I agree that children need encouragement and reassurance. My point was that while not enough praise is bad, so is too much.
      It is the latter that has contributed, in my view, to the self-obsession which afflicts so many children and their parents today.
      Positive reinforcement is a vital component of good education, but it needs to be dispensed judiciously. It’s like the salt on your freedom fries: not enough, and the experience is bland; too much, and dinner is ruined.
      While I am dubious about many of the alleged insights of modern psychology, I agree that praise (or blame) the action rather than the person is a sound principle. Isn’t that a reformulation of Hate the sin, love the sinner?

  4. Judy StThomas on March 2, 2015 at 3:50 pm said:

    I totally agree with the differentiation you’ve clarified regarding types of parental praise. I think there’s one exception that might be worth noting. It seems to me that all parents should shower on their children with one specific ‘person praise’. We should always remind our children,’You are unconditionally loved… by God and by me’.

  5. Mike L on March 4, 2015 at 11:54 am said:

    My father used to say, “what’s wrong you only got 100 on that test. Wasn’t there extra credit?” Guess what – that’s how you get into the Ivy League and land a big job. That’s reality. Doesn’t matter how you feel it’s just the facts.

  6. Mike L on March 4, 2015 at 11:54 am said:

    My father used to say, “what’s wrong you only got 100 on that test. Wasn’t there extra credit?” Guess what – that’s how you get into the Ivy League and land a big job. That’s reality. Doesn’t matter how you or I feel it’s just the facts.

  7. Bruce Rovertson on May 19, 2015 at 1:13 am said:

    I’ve been raising my now 7 year old son since he was only a month old ,his mother or the person who gave birth to him ,she wanted a differant life style…..God bless her ,anyway she has o my seen him twice, In A these years ,”her choice”….with that said my son is tbe best thing that ever happened to me ,GIFT FROM GOD,I tuly believe that..I give him my most valuable asset…my time ….nor is he a Burdon I praise him so much ,and I can see that has not been the best choice ,I become passive semi aggressive as far as I’ll let things go “discipline “wise ,he’s extremly bright but feels he’s the alpha male …I have to play both roles it seems it’s just been him and since he was born ,,he has essentsilly said NO TO ME ,with out saying the exact word more times in a week than I have to both my pTants in my life time ,and I’m 48 …so he is kind living and compassionate ,,,but falling very behind in reading writing ,we try to read together but when he makes a mistake RXTREMELY AGGRIVATED and does like to do home work with me …..I need some help in this arena my name is Bruce any help would be appreciated

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