Children who are praised too much will be hard to succeed

Children who are overly praised about intelligence often try to do everything to deserve such praise, including examination fraud.

A work just published in the scientific journal Psychological Science shows that children 3 years of age and older can develop untrue signals if parents praise too much for intelligence and academic achievements. outstanding learning of children.

Exaggerated praise, especially praise for intelligence, is completely detrimental to children - (photo: INDEPENDENT).

"It seems so popular and natural when parents tell their children how smart they are," says author Gali Heyman, a psychologist who developed at UC San Diego . However, these praises become a kind of pressure and temptation for children, making them ready to cheat to continue to be praised.

An experiment was conducted based on 300 3 and 5-year-old children in East China, home of research co-author, psychologist Kang Lee (University of Toronto, Canada). Babies are allowed to play games, after which some children are praised for their intelligence, others are praised for their achievements, some are not.

The children who are praised are asked to promise that they will not cheat the next time they play. A sheet of paper recording the results is close to the play area, with a hidden camera. The second time, many young people in the group were praised, especially the compliment of intelligence, tried to glimpse the results in order to achieve similar or more achievements.

This research has developed the previous points that Professor Carol Dweck, Stanford University psychologist (USA), put forward. According to Ms. Dweck, the children should be praised for their efforts, not their intelligence. Thus, new children are motivated to continue to try and succeed in the future.

Unintentional praise becomes a kind of pressure and temptation for children.

Professor Dweck also discovered that children believe that their intelligence can be developed, rather than a fixed one, to be better equipped to deal with obstacles.

Praising young children properly has also been mentioned by domestic experts. In a child psychology workshop organized by the Children's Hospital 1 in 2017, MS-Doctor Pham Minh Triet, Head of the Psychology Department of this hospital once advised parents not to compare children with friends. If the parents criticize their child to lose to A, friend B, the child will be inferior; He also praises his children more than other people, making them become arrogant, affecting their awareness and efforts in the process of learning and accumulating social skills.