The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Praise Your Kids

Praising Your Kids Is So Important

Phrasing is everything

Elizabeth Preston

Aug 22 · 4 min read

Your preschooler draws a picture of you. It looks like a potato chip

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“Wow, look at that!” you’re probably tempted to say. “You’re such a good artist!”

Before you do, though, take a beat to consider your words. The right phrasing might keep your little artist happy and hardworking, but researchers say praising children the wrong way can make them less motivated, harm their self-esteem, or even turn them into tiny narcissists.

“In general, in the U.S. particularly, we tend to view all praise as good,” says Shannon Zentall, a developmental psychologist at the University of Akron. But focusing on a child’s innate qualities — saying “You’re so smart” or “You’re great at math,” for example — can actually be harmful, possibly because it suggests that these qualities are fundamental to the child’s identity. Kids who hear this kind of “person praise” may be less persistent after a failure or avoid difficult tasks in favor of easier ones, perhaps because a failure would threaten that identity.

They may also be more keenly attuned to potential mistakes. In a 2012 study, Zentall and her co-author, Bradley Morris, used eye-tracking technology to show that young kids who had heard person praise (“You’re a good drawer”) focused more on the errors in a drawing. This ties in with mindset theory, an idea developed by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck that suggests that a fixed mindset — the belief that abilities are innate and unchangeable — undermines personal progress.

By contrast, process praise focuses on what the kid did: “You must have studied hard for that math test,” or simply, “Good job!” Some research co-authored by Dweck has shown that after kids hear this kind of feedback, they’re more motivated on future tasks and more resilient to setbacks.

According to mindset theory, process praise can also help kids cultivate the opposite of the fixed mindset: a growth mindset, or the belief that their abilities are malleable and can be improved with time and effort. In one study, Dweck and her colleagues videotaped parents interacting with their toddlers and gave questionnaires to the same kids years later. Those who had heard more process praise as toddlers had more growth-oriented mindsets in second or third grade. In the fourth grade, the same kids performed better in math and reading comprehension.

Another study from Zentall and Morris found that when kindergartners heard a mix of the two praise types, process praise was more motivating — but just one instance of person praise could lower their persistence. “Which is a little bit scary for parents, because we are not that consistent,” Zentall says.

So, as a general rule, praising a child’s effort and actions, rather than their qualities, seems to be priority number one. But it’s not the only thing to keep in mind when confronted with that potato chip portrait.

“When you tell kids that they did incredibly well, they might feel pressure to do incredibly well all the time.”

In a 2014 paper, Zentall and Morris looked at more generic types of kudos. After a simulated drawing task, kindergartners received either person praise, process praise, a high-five, a thumbs-up, or just a “Yay!” Kids who got simple cheers or gestures were just as persistent afterward as those who heard the process praise, Zentall says. She argues that general, ambiguous encouragement is fine — as long as you don’t deliver it so constantly that your kid starts to ignore you.

It can be hard for moms and dads to rein it in, though. When parents sense that their kids have low self-esteem, they’re especially likely to give inflated praise, University of Amsterdam psychologist Eddie Brummelman has found, “So, instead of telling kids that they made a nice drawing, parents tell them they made an incredibly nice drawing,” he says. “Or instead of telling kids that they did well, parents tell them that they did amazingly well.”

Unfortunately, inflated praise seems to actually lower the self-esteem of these kids and may push them to avoid challenges. “When you tell kids that they did incredibly well, they might feel pressure to do incredibly well all the time,” Brummelman says. “They might become afraid of not being able to live up to that standard.” He has also seen that inflated praise may increase kids’ narcissistic traits, even while their self-esteem remains low.

All these rules about what not to say can feel paralyzing. “I understand that parents are anxious about how to praise and that they might become extremely careful about what they say,” Brummelman says. But you don’t need to just clam up, he says: “Parents should never stop praising.” It gives kids a sense of how well they’re doing, which is important. Just remember to keep your praise modest, truthful, and process-focused.

Easier said than done, of course. “It’s hard to say things the right way, because it doesn’t come out naturally sometimes,” Zentall says, citing the time her own son came home saying he was bad at math and she struggled to encourage him without using person praise.

But parents shouldn’t hold themselves to an impossible standard of perfection, either. If you manage to give your kid healthy, proportional feedback most of the time: Good job. Really.