Parents, Please Be Observant When Appreciating, This Is The Type Of Praise That Can Harm Children

JAKARTA - Often, with or without realizing it, parents often give sweet compliments to their children such as, "You are great", or "Papa-mama is very proud of you." You can pronounce these sentences very easily. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this sentence. However, it turns out that there is a reason why you should not easily say it over and over in front of your little one.

The intention of the heart wants to praise or motivate, praise that says that your child is smart will actually cause problems. Our environment indirectly puts children to be the best. They have the burden of having perfect grades, being smart, achieving, being ranked, or being in the top class.

Launching from Scientific American, December 20, parents often put additional pressure by always asking what grades their children got and always encouraging them to be the best. Children may think they need to continue to live up to the 'you're smart' compliment and please their parents. This can stress them out because they are afraid of not getting the credit if they make a mistake. Stress increases when children are constantly praised for their intelligence.

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., lecturer in psychology at Stanford University, USA, and her colleagues studied hundreds of elementary school students in New York. Study participants were divided into two groups: those who were praised for their intelligence and those who were praised for their efforts. The results show that praising children's intelligence tends to make them less resilient in the face of challenges.

The reason is, children who are accustomed to intelligent praise will feel that they are the best and there is no way to beat them. The study also further provided the participants with a test that was actually designed for grade 8 students. The result is students who are praised for their efforts, they work very hard even if they make a lot of mistakes.

Children who are praised for their intelligence become discouraged and see their mistakes as a sign of failure. Intelligence tests of children who were praised for their intelligence dropped 20 percent. In contrast, children who were praised for their efforts increased by 30 percent.