
The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids - agrinshtein
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
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oversharing
I love this article. Every little failure in school (failing to win first
place in a competition, getting a B on a test) made me doubt my talent, and I
started losing all belief in my ability when I started taking graduate-level
classes in my field. I knew it was irrational and wrong, but for the previous
decade of my life, working hard in school had been a reliable sign of a lack
of talent. The kids who had a future in a subject breezed by and the kids at
the bottom struggled. Now I was working hard, even struggling sometimes. Did I
instantly abandon and unlearn a decade of programming? No. It was like the end
of _The Crying Game_ in slow motion, three years of discovering that where I
_thought_ there was some talent there was, instead, a disgusting, useless lump
of flesh.

By the time I got to graduate school I was overwhelmed with a feeling of
inevitable failure. I just couldn't stop thinking about failure. Every time I
picked up my books I would think about how humiliating it was not to be good
enough. I was actually doing acceptably well in my coursework, at one of the
top PhD programs in the country, but it became impossible for me to even sit
down and study for any length of time because I was so ashamed. I tried to
talk myself into a more sensible attitude, but I just couldn't do it.

I have very few memories of the six months I spent living there. I didn't make
any friends and can only recall the names of two people I met there: my
advisor and one classmate who was friendly toward me. I remember my apartment
and the office I shared. (I remember forcing myself to go to the office to
study, and I remember sitting there wondering whether the other students could
tell how stupid I was just by watching me.) I can remember a few of the places
I went -- the zoo, a restaurant where I ate almost every day, a few movie
theaters, a used bookstore -- but I don't really remember being there. I
didn't use any drugs while I was there and rarely drank (since I had a policy
of not drinking alone.) Yet I don't have any memories of specific times or
events. I just remember being in my apartment, being at my desk at the office,
feeling stupid, miserable, and worthless.

And so I dropped out and got a job in software. That was very lucky for me: I
chose it because I thought it didn't require any real intelligence (which I
was obviously lacking) but it turned out to be a good way to put my talent to
work.

P.S. I normally post under a different name, but this is kind of a whiny sob
story, and I'd rather just get it off my chest anonymously.

P.P.S. Now that I think about it, the only reason I remember my advisor's name
is that I later saw him interviewed in a PBS documentary about a famous
scientist he worked with.

~~~
omarchowdhury
that there's some paranoia you got

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wglb
Being intelligent as a part of one's identity is not a good idea. I know this
from my own experience--I skipped second grade, and was never comfortable in
school.

This praise business to me is a subset of what I have come to believe is
"raising the kid by remote control". For example, yelling from the other room
"I can tell you aren't doing your homework". Far better to sit with the
children during homework time, tv off, be available to them, answer any
question they want to ask. This is all about them learning to be the pilot in
their own life.

This is as important for the father to do as the mother. And yes, this takes
time.

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hugs
I remember reading this when it first came out in 2007, and it's stuck with me
ever since. When my boys (now 5yo and 3yo) do accomplish something super cool
(riding a bike, catching a ball, learning to swim), I remind them that it was
lots of practice that got them there. Praising effort instead of intelligence
feels right, but I really, really hope this doesn't turn out to be some quack
parental theory that leaves them in rehab for the rest of their lives.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_some quack parental theory that leaves them in rehab for the rest of their
lives_

You're doing fine. Try to keep in mind that the notion that minor differences
in parental style can send your kids into rehab for life is, itself, the
quackiest of quack parental theories.

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tokenadult
As Richard Rusczyk (math competitor and now operator of the Art of Problem
Solving website) says, "If ever you are by far the best, or the most
interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom."

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calcul...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php)

He has other good ideas for smart students in his other articles.

[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_Articles...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_Articles.php)

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lutorm
This research is one of the most fascinating things I've come across in a
while: The idea that, regardless of whether there is such a thing as an innate
trait of "intelligence", your _belief_ that you are either good at something
or not will hurt your performance.

~~~
frossie
There are many many examples of this. For example, if you give girls math
tests and tell them your purpose in giving them the test is to check for
gender differences in math performance, the girls do significantly worse than
if you tell them nothing.

And it's not just intelligence - this is why sports psychologists can make a
living coaching athletes.

Of course when you carry out research like this at school level, you can
assume that the material is not impossible to master even for a child of
average intelligence. I don't know whether these results hold at the world-
class researcher level. Still, the school years provide an important
foundation for later life, so it is proper that people look into what affects
performance.

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anatoly
I'm not sure I see how that'd work with the really smart children. They can
often get their homework done with the fraction of effort required from other
kids. Praising the effort will then look ridiculous and seem like a lie. "Oh,
I see that you've finished your math homework in 10 minutes. You must have
worked really hard on that!"

~~~
hugs
So let them finish their homework in 10 minutes, and _then_ find something
that _will_ take the child more than 10 minutes to do. And praise them for
working on _that_. If praising the 10-minute homework effort is ridiculous,
then don't do it. Raise the bar. There's got to be _something_ in the whole
field of mathematics that would take the kid more than 10 minutes. (General
disclaimers apply, I'm sure there are limits to how high you can raise the bar
before the kid goes homicidal on you.)

~~~
dkarl
This is absolutely correct. There always has to be more and harder stuff for
kids to accomplish. If there's a ceiling, then smart kids will quickly hit the
ceiling and then start measuring themselves by how much effort is required to
stay there. That's the way it was at my school: all the honors/AP kids learned
the same material, and in every class there were at least a couple of kids who
got high As on most things. The only way to distinguish yourself was to do it
without working hard, because you couldn't distinguish yourself by
accomplishing more and harder things.

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mhb
Perhaps if the original title were used, it would have been more obvious that
this was submitted over two years ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=640>

