How to praise correctly: 5 tips for parents
1. show genuine interest
2. emphasise the impact of actions
Avoid making judgements about a child's character («You are a helpful person»). It makes more sense to emphasise the effects of an action: «Thank you for helping me with the shopping. That helped me a lot».
3. recognise the effort
A study by the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich, for example, has shown that praise for ability («you're so clever!») as opposed to praise for effort («you really made an effort!») leads children to avoid challenging tasks in the future. The reason for this is that skills, in contrast to effort, appear less changeable - and children would rather avoid being seen as «incapable». Instead of saying «you're such a clever girl!» you could say «great, you kept working on that maths problem until you mastered it.»
Fake praise such as «Don't stress, it's already working great!» can even make you angry.
4. describe the progress
One advantage of descriptive praise is that you can also use it when things are not going particularly well. If a child is struggling with a task, you also want or need to show them what they have done wrong. Fake praise such as «Don't stress, it's going really well!» can even make them angry. By describing progress, you support a child in their attempts. «If we keep practising like this, you'll soon be hitting the basketball hoop. You're already much closer than last time.»
5. avoid comparative praise
The study by the University of Zurich also showed that comparative praise («you did that better than the others») tends to have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation - in contrast to mastery praise («now you've done it»). The reason: praising children at the expense of others ultimately leads to them learning that it is more important to be better than to actually be able to do something.
