Parents do everything to take care of their children. Parents can do anything for the happiness of the child. From toys to studies, parents try to do the best of everything so that their child feels good, is happy, therefore takes care of all their needs.
But do you know that parents should praise their children along with all this, yes according to research it has been proved that there are many benefits of praising children. A simple compliment can generate self-worth and pride. However, it depends on what kind of praise we give, as well as when and how often, because there are many ways to praise.
As a psychotherapist who works with parents and children, I have seen time and time again that the negative effects of a child’s brilliance or an excess of outcomes.
But these short, exaggerated responses can cause children to focus only on things that can damage their self-esteem. They can feel performance anxiety, so should you praise your kids at all? Undoubtedly. But there are right and wrong ways to compliment.
When you praise the process (for example, the child is putting effort into a math assignment), rather than the talent or result (for example, the child’s natural ability to solve math problems quickly), the child’s future are more likely to develop a positive attitude towards challenges.
In the 1990s, Carol S. Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, studied the effects of this type of praise. In one experiment, one group of children was told they succeeded because they were smart, while the other group was told they succeeded because they worked hard.
When two groups were given a variety of puzzles, the children in the other group were more likely to choose the difficult puzzle. Dweck also found that praising the process made them more likely to feel confident in a task, even if they made a mistake.
Parents love to compare – we can’t help it! And sometimes, we’ll even tell our kids that they’re better than others. You can praise both ways. Often, this is done with good intentions. We want them to feel just as proud as us, and be inspired to do even better next time. Praising children by comparison with another child can lead to autism, attention-seeking behavior and a lack of teamwork values in some cases.
So instead of comparing yourself to someone else, encourage them to compare their past efforts. It gets them into the habit of making their goals better than everyone else’s and shifts them towards self-improvement.
For example, “That’s great!”, you can say, “I love the colors in your painting. Tell me more about why you chose them.”
These simple language variations can help your kids feel proud of themselves for putting effort into something. This can make them more excited to take on more challenging things in the future.
If your child has failed the spelling test, avoid telling him that he should have studied more. Instead, ask them what they think they can do to improve next time.
By adopting these methods, you can praise the child in a new way so that his confidence in himself increases further and the child tries to improve himself further. Children need to know that they can come to their parents not only when they have done something good, but also when they are faced with a specific task or challenge.