To praise or not to praise, that is the question

Dr Carol Dweck "Emphasising effort gives a child a variable they can control. They come to see themselves in control of their success. Emphasising natural intelligence takes it out of a child's control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure."

In wider studies, the relentless pressure on a child branded a genius is now being seen as a prime reason for them falling back at school. In a frankly terrifying study of 10/11 year olds in New York, children were set tests. Afterwards, half of them were told, "You must be smart at this." The other half were told, "You must have worked really hard." They were then offered a choice of second test, one easy and one hard. The children who had been told they had been smart picked the easy test. Those who were encouraged for hard work went for the harder option.

So does all this mean we should never praise a child for achieving things, only for the effort they put in? Probably not. As with all things, there is probably a more common sense approach in the middle. However, when going through your child's attainment grades and test results, it is important to also talk about it in the context of the effort grade. (If you want to read a fuller article on this subject then click here)