This is an issue that classrooms try to implement regularly, it is very positive that children recognize their attempts More than your achievements. This is the same in family. "How smart you are" or "How good you have worked"? It seems clear that praise reinforces the child's personality but, What kind of praise is best for children?
Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, has spent years demonstrating that one of the fundamental elements of successful education is the ability to learn from mistakes. However, we tend to convey just the opposite, because if a child makes mistakes, he is not supposed to be very smart.
The intelligent does not make mistakes, and we also praise him precisely for that. The message that is implicitly transmitted is that you have to be ready, without making mistakes: to fail is to fail, it is not worth trying.
Dweck conducted an experiment with more than 400 children from twelve New York schools: he underwent a very easy test consisting of a puzzle. Once finished, the note was told to each child, followed by a phrase of praise. Half of the children were praised for their intelligence; The other half, for your effort.
They were then allowed to choose between two different tests. The first option was described as a series of more difficult puzzles, but the children were told that if they tried, they would learn a lot. The other option was an easy test, similar to what they had already done.
A simple phrase of praise seemed to have a lot of influence on the results: group of children congratulated for their effort, 99% chose the set of difficult puzzles: one more challenge, trying it is the good thing. For their part, most of the boys praised for their intelligence decided on the easiest test.
The following Dweck experiments suggest that the fear of failure also inhibits learning. With the same group of children, they were subjected to another test, this time very difficult, to see how they responded to the challenge.
The involvement of children praised for their effort was clear and enthusiastic. Actually, it is a way of promoting their autonomy. Instead, children praised for their intelligence were immediately discouraged, because they considered their inevitable mistakes as signs of failure.
How “effort” children were willing to accept challenges (Although that at first supposed to fail), they ended up performing at school at a much higher level. Students who had been randomly assigned to the “ready” group had worse results.
