Over the past three generations, theories about self-esteem have dramatically changed. When my mother was a child, her parents gave her very little praise because they believed it would give her a “swelled head.” Today’s parents heap praise on their children for the tiniest achievements. No gesture is too small to escape exaltation and every action is followed by “good job.”
Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and it turns out my grandparents may have been on to something. There is mounting evidence that constant praise may be damaging our grandchildren.
Inappropriate Praise
Last January, I read a fascinating article by Heidi Stevens, author and columnist at the Chicago Tribune. Her article, “In Criticism of Praise” explains the negative impact overpraising can have on children. The more we praise them as Extra Super Smart Geniuses, the further they go to protect that label. In fact, they may stop taking risks because they’re afraid they’ll fail.
Parents and grandparents have become programmed to lavish our children with praise because we’ve been lead to believe that’s what builds a child’s self-esteem. According to Carol Dweck, Stanford University psychology professor and a leading pioneer in praise research, it’s critical we try a new approach.
In 1997 Dweck published a study demonstrating that praise—at least a certain kind of praise—can actually backfire. Her studies show that when you praise children for who they are, e.g. “you’re so smart” or “you have a good mind for math,” you can make children want to avoid seeking out challenges. They don’t want to risk failure, which might show that they really aren’t that competent.
Appropriate Praise
On the other hand, when you praise children for things they did well, e.g., “it looks like all that research you did this week paid off” or “I could tell you were really focused and hustling out there today,” they’ll be more motivated to repeat the behavior and try harder in the future.
“We have a big task ahead of us,” says Dweck. “The self-esteem movement changed people’s intuition about praise. But it’s never too late to change our ways.” In her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck argues that “humans are infinitely capable of dropping or shifting even our most deeply ingrained habits. If parents lead the way, she says, their children will follow.”
She’s encouraged that parents, educators and mentors are having conversations about praise, even if they haven’t universally shifted away from it. Praising children is a hard habit to break but with conscious effort, we can change the way we compliment.
The solution is not to stop praising children but to praise appropriately. The goal is to encourage children to take pride in the process.
- Be specific and ask questions. “I love the way you’re telling a story.” “Your use of colors is interesting. Can you tell me what you were thinking here?”
- Describe the behavior in specific terms. “All those long hours in the batting cage have paid off!”
- Be genuine in your delight. Children know when praise is genuine. If praise isn’t sincere, children may get the unspoken message that they’re inadequate.
Talk to your grandchild’s parents and ask them what they’ve been reading and learning about praise and self-esteem. It’s a fascinating conversation.
The picture of the child with all of those (useless) trophies just about sums it all up. Thank you for raising this important topic. It will take some work to change this culture.
Anue,
Your last comment has given me even more perspective…and much to ‘chew on’. Than you for such in-depth perspective. I am even wondering if I could use this article in the La Petite Baleen ” Whale Wisdom ” blog because your comments is so articulate.
My family is fortunate: since we are in the ‘kid biz’ and my children grew up in the family business with a strong common sense view, my grandchildren flourish with love/discipline belt lines. Other parents marvel at their strong self reliance…including the 4 yr old grandson who rode his bike into town ( 1 mile), to deliver a birthday card to his bible teacher…gulp ).
I have a strong position with my family in this love/discipline model.It DOES take a village to raise children and I have a special role with the 8 grandchildren. My grandchildren are rich in family experiences. How fortunate are they! How fortunate am I!
Yes, It does still take a village to raise a child. It always makes my heart glad to hear about families who are practicing a love/discipline model village style! Feel free to quote me on your blog – it seems a lovely space as does this one!
Nathaniel Branden’s book The Psychology of Self-Esteem led to the ill conceived self – esteem movement of the 1970’s that has permeated our culture. The problem grandparents have now is that we have a generation of parents who grew up addicted to praise. Although many like to pass the buck back to the parents, us the grandparents, for the rise in narcissistic personality traits and grandparent estrangement / alienation, it was actually the psychology profession that advanced the idea that praise equals self-esteem. They were actually pedaling bad science for decades and the practice has had a huge impact on society. Those of us who did not buy into the movement in the first place have been mostly already discarded as grandparents by our adult children who became praise junkies from outside exposure to the movement at school and work, or through reading the myriad of self-help books based on the bad science. Many of those parents who did buy into the movement are now faced with walking around on eggshells with their grand children’s parents trying to be sure to offer plenty of praise so as not to damage their self-esteem and be cut-off from the grandchildren. Some parents and grandparents are even still writing grand parenting articles and books explaining how praising our adult children for their parenting abilities is the key to not being axed from the grand children’s lives. When in fact, for our grand children’s sake, we all actually need to detox from the self-esteem movement. It is going to be interesting indeed to see just how we work our way through and out of this on our way back to the wisdom of the great grandparent generation with empathy and compassion for each other. Because, after all, we’ve simply been subjects of a failed experiment.
I agree with the historical perspective you have given on the self esteem movement. Esteem is EARNED, not given, as I have said to many parents ( if I felt it was safe to do so ). On this historical timeline of the self esteem movement I also see that there is strong competition to be ” on top–the best ” in a society wrought with having more and more….racing to what end?
Dr Stephanie Brown’s book, ” Speed ” has some good perspective on this also. It has become a complicated syndrome that needs awareness and common sense as first steps towards a healthier ~~and more productive~~ life.
Right now many small and medium businesses are finding it very difficult to retain employees. Millennial’s want to be praised constantly, and rewarded continuously for doing less and less. Our ability to be a part of the global economy is weakening, as we weaken our children’s capabilities for a work ethic, creativity and enjoyment of self actualization.
The idea that over praise is a root cause of family break downs is thought provoking. I think you are on to a good point.
The self-esteem movement has had such far reaching ramifications for society that I think we haven’t even begun to wrap our understanding around it and connect all the dots on yet. For instance, for decades therapists who already were educated on the false premise that anything wrong with an adult child could be traced back to the parents, or mother more specifically, latched onto the self-esteem movement almost universally. It was like adding intense fuel to an out of control fire. If your parents didn’t praise you enough and ‘fill your bucket up with self-esteem’, then you were damaged and needed to heal from your childhood wounds.
This incorrect theory gave parents of our generation an even more urgent desire to lavish their own offspring with praise and protect them from the alleged damage done by previous generations. With higher and higher levels of praise being so widely touted and accepted as preventive and protective measures for developing and sustaining self -esteem in everyone, from children in school settings > to full grown adults in the workplace, it became common for parents to want to ‘protect’ their children from the damaging effects of those ‘horrible’ old people who actually knew society was running amok; the great grandparent generation who not only resisted joining the movement, but also resisted sitting in therapist’s offices with their adult children who had already begun to become tainted and began to get ‘kicked to the curb’ in greater and greater numbers.
What we have ended up with is our current highly medicated narcissistic culture and no measurable improvement in any of the ills the self-esteem movement claimed to be the remedy for. I don’t think there really is any question about how the self-esteem movement led to a phenomenal increase in grandparent estrangement/alienation. The real question is when are they going to universally fess up as a profession and stop blaming parents for causing the problems, and how is a generation of parents addicted to praise really going to successfully detox from the endless supply of ‘feel good’ drugs, (from praise, to facebook likes, to pharmaceuticals to street drugs), they are still using in high quantities. I mean, we even have a generation of “praise junkie” grandparents who regularly write articles and books warning that a grandparent who does not provide enough narcissistic supply to their adult children (from constantly reminding them what good parents they are, to remaining mute and deaf to all unappealing or unacceptable behavior), are at great risk of being cut-off from the grandchildren, which sadly they are. And most authors writing about the problems with the self-esteem movement begin by discussing how “parents” of the current generation may be “ruining” their children by lavishing them with praise rather than with a more transparent historical perspective that removes the blame/shame game from the parent equation and places the blame back squarely where it belongs. The psychology profession as a whole has made some huge errors of judgement and it’s time for that profession to grow up and out of it’s adolescents too.
We have all simply been subjects of a failed experiment and now it’s time to learn and to get to work applying the lessons, as uncomfortable as that may be. Unfortunately, it’s our grand children’s generation that is already paying a huge price, and is going to continue to pay the highest price of the failed human experiment that will go down in history as the self-esteem movement of the 70’s. Those in the helping professions and grandparents especially can play an important role in mitigating the damages by progressively cutting down on the praise, and by encouraging and supporting their adult children through the withdrawal period. Ending the nature/nurture debate completely and letting the long held secret out of the bag that we all always have been, and always will be, amateur parents with each and every child seems to me to be the most sensible first step towards accessing the empathy we are going to need in huge quantities across the board to get back on track. In the meantime, it just might do a world of good to start seriously reexamining the wisdom of our ancestors.
Being in a family child business, we have observed this over the last 10 years. Parents chase for the stickers and ribbons. The emphasis is on product and not process. Children are cheated in the learning process.
The result includes unrealistic expectations as this generation goes out into the work world, deal with relationships and , above all, not really owning their competency internally.