Books

Back in early 2007, the blogosphere was a-cackle over an essay that appeared in New York Magazine. The gist of it, from what I could glean, was that we were over-praising our kids, and that too much praise was a bad thing. I never did get around to reading the source article, but I frothed in more than one blog’s comment section about how ridiculous I found the concept. Too much praise? No such thing. After all, I was raised on a steady diet of affirmation and praise, and I think it was one of the factors that most strongly contributed to the best parts of the adult I am today.

In the last week or so, I started hearing buzz about that theory in the background noise again, and found out that the authors of the original article had expanded it into a book that was getting a lot of interest. The book is called NurtureShock, and the general idea they posit is that we’ve been ignoring some of the most important scientific discoveries about children, learning and parenting. They propose to “use the fascinating new science of children to reveal just how many of our bedrock assumptions about kids can no longer be counted on.”

They were on CBC’s The Current last week, and although I missed it, the buzz reminded me that I wanted to check out the book. I was 104th in the queue when I requested it from the library, but lucked into a copy on the two-week “express reads” shelf the very next day.

I had the blog post half-written in my head as I walked out of the library. I was going to do a thorough, scholarly analysis and discount the theory on a point-by-point basis. I was going to tear it to pieces. I could hardly wait. I still had 20 minutes left to kill in Tristan’s skating lesson when I pulled out the book and started reading, pencil and notebook at my side. I was on page four – FOUR! – when my jaw dropped open in shock and dismay.

They were describing Tristan. To a perfect T. I did a 180-degree about-face. They were — gasp! — right!

The chapter starts with Thomas, a child whose IQ test scored him among the top one percent of the top one percent of applicants to his school:

“Tristan Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’” With no more than a glance, Tristan Thomas was dividing the world into two — things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

In the last year, I’ve seen this pattern a LOT in Tristan, in everything from riding a bike to drawing to math problems. Most things are easy for him, but the things that aren’t make him want to quit immediately. He’s reluctant to try, in case he might fail.

I read the rest of the chapter with avid interest. Turns out, their theory is not so much that praise itself is detrimental, but that gratuitous, insincere and non-specific praise is. They review a scientific study in which two groups of students were asked to do puzzles well within their ability. One group was given the single line of praise “You must be smart at this” while the other was given the single line of praise “You must have worked really hard.” The students were then offered the choice between two puzzles. One choice was a more challenging puzzle that researchers told the kids they’d learn a lot from attempting and the second choice was an easy test, just like the first. The results? “Of those praised for their effort, 90 per cent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The ‘smart’ kids took the cop-out.”

Carol Dweck, the researcher who engineered these studies, was surprised by the magnitude of the effect of praise on the students’ choices. She theorizes that praising the effort gives the child a variable he or she can control, while praising an innate characteristic like intelligence “takes it out of the child’s control, and provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

The chapter goes on to discuss the culture of self-esteem building that has been inherent to parenting advice for the last three or four decades, following the publication of Nathaniel Branden’s The Psychology of Self-Esteem. The authors note that the idea of promoting and preserving a child’s self-esteem has become “an unstoppable train [where] anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned on. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.”

Another researcher, after reviewing 200 scientifically-sound studies on measuring self-esteem and its outcomes found that “having a high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement.” In fact, he believes that “the contiued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: it’s so strong that ‘when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.’”

Ouch.

And yet, the more I read, the more “Aha!” moments I had. One of my pet rants is the ‘culture of entitlement’ we seem to be living in right now. No wonder “failure is not an option” in Ontario schools… and small wonder that adults bring the same attitudes into the workforce.

I was so gobsmacked, so excited by what I read, that I couldn’t wait to talk to Beloved about it. I stood in the kitchen and talked about how clearly I saw Tristan in the examples. He scores quite well in just about every subject, and yet he is so obviously reluctant to try things he won’t immediately excel at. He is very risk-averse when it comes to trying new activities, but loves to do the things he does well.

Beloved was obviously listening to me, but he was regarding me with an expression on his face so curious that I eventually stopped in mid-sentence. “What?” I asked.

“You don’t see it, do you?” he asked, and I blushed. I did see it. “It’s not just Tristan, it’s YOU!” I skulked out of the kitchen muttering, “Stupid book, stupid praise, stupid husband thinks he knows me so well, what does he know, grumble grumble grumble…”

Of course he is right. He’s so right. It is me. My name is DaniGirl, and I am a praise junkie. I need to be validated. This blog exists because of my fundamental need for external validation. From the time of sentinence, I have made choices that would please my parents and those around me. And, I hate to fail. Really, really hate to fail. My ongoing struggles with French are a case study in my unwillingness to take the necessary risk of possibly making a mistake in public and looking foolish in the name of learning. If I can’t figure something out practically immediately, I lose interest.

Now, I also believe that the strong sense of self that my parents instilled in me from birth has practically everything to do with the fact that I am a happy, confident and successful adult who has achieved by age 40 just about everything I set out to do in life. In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather be a vaguely needy praise junkie with a successful career, loving husband, stable environment, lovely children, supportive family and terrific friends than an independent and persistent homeless crack addict. But I have to say, the first chapter of this book has given me lots to think about.

When I got to the end of that first chapter, I turned the page and realized the subject had moved on to an examination of whether kids getting, on average, an hour less sleep is causing ADHD, obesity and lost IQ points. Another interesting theory, perhaps, but I was anxious: where’s the rest? Where’s the answer? I want more on the subject of praise, please. Twenty-six pages hasn’t covered this in nearly enough detail for me. I need a roadmap, and a checklist. I need a work sheet. What if I fail?!

In all honesty, I’m not sure I can dial back the praise. It is too deeply ingrained in who I am, and in how I raise my boys. It is fundamental to who I am. I will, however, be more selective in my praise, and try to praise what the boys can control over what they cannot. I like the idea presented that the brain is a muscle that grows with each mistake made and learned from, and I’ll definitely be incorporating that into my mothering repetoire.

I’m almost afraid to read the rest of the book. What other deeply-held and fundamental tenents may be toppled like the Berlin Wall by the time I’m done? I’ll come back and let you know whether I can even look myself in the mirror by the time I’m done.

In the interim, as always, I’m curious as to your thoughts. Can you praise a child too much? Have we as a culture become self-esteem junkies? Is there any hope for an inveterate praise junkie like me, or should I just focus on saving the boys from praise addiction?

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