How to make a smart kid afraid to learn
10/23/09
by Joy Lum, Ph.D.
Listening to an NPR segment the other day on ambition reminded me how our best intentions can subvert our true aim. Essentially, this interview was on the body of work that explores what makes people ambitious, accomplished, and successful. What they found was those who have accomplished a lot in life were likely praised for their effort, not intelligence.
It’s a critical difference. When someone admires your effort at something, it makes you want to try harder, even when you make mistakes. You achieve more and it makes you happy.
So why is being pronounced “intelligent” so bad? After all, isn’t it a compliment in our society, to good genes and good parenting? Unfortunately in the child’s mind, being praised for one’s intelligence can turn each school assignment into a test of this mantle. Errors could mean you are no longer intelligent. As a result some children take on assignments with a lot anxiety, fearing mistakes. Some dedicate themselves to looking perfect, which requires a tremendous and inhuman effort (often kept a secret because you’re supposed to be a whiz, and being a whiz means everything should come easily). Others may give up trying (e.g., if I don’t even try, no one will know if
I’m really not that smart). Perhaps they go on in life never quite fulfilling their star promise.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman have compiled a body of research on the reverse effects of such praise and more in their new book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, a book that could make a sensible difference in how people parent.
In my experience as a therapist, I’ve seen some intellectually-gifted children give up, retreat into computer games and, on the extreme end, opt out of school partly because it was too costly to their emotional self to make mistakes and risk that the “intelligent” label might be disproved. I suspect at the bottom for this young teen is the fear that the important adult in their life who loves their intelligence might not love them if they were just an ordinary young person. And who would love a fraud?
So the next time you are tempted to compliment the “smart” child, bear in mind the unintended consequences. Praising their effort instead sets the stage for a lifetime of rewards.
Note: For more reading on this and other parenting ideas, see: NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. I tried to find the NPR show I was listening to, but could not find the exact one. Here is a link to one that is similar:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113347007
