Comment by maeon3
15 years ago
Parents who give their kids a regular diet of "High Praise", "Agreeableness", "Supportiveness" and "Positive Interaction", but don't send them to college create children who have higher socioeconomic statuses than children of disconnected parents who send theirs to college. Multiple studies done confirm this.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XDq9Xf_NbrMC&lpg=PT28&#...
Adam Savage from Mythbusters claimed his love of building came from his parents encouraging him to make all sorts of crazy inventions. Moral of the story, encourage the children to build stuff, keep them on track but don't do it for them.
one of the nicest ideas I got from Adam Savage is the idea of a hardware store expense account. His father, instead of giving him an allowance, would give him a certain amount of money he could spend every week at the hardware store.
An artist who is a hero of mine, Toshi Iwai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshio_Iwai) in his talks describes how his parents stopped buying toys for him when he turned 10. He was encouraged to design and build his own toys. When he talks about his art, he always starts by showing these great sketches and flipbooks he made as a ten year old.
anyway, I find this approach (expense account for building supplies, encouraging children to build their own toys) really quite inspiring and plan on trying to raise my children the same way when they are that age.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but that is a book, not a study. I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers (personally, I don't like that, but none the less - the studies do exist)
> I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers
Ok. I don't like that either.
I'd rather raise a healthy, curious, creative, passionate, and happy child.
I couldn't care less about what he achieves.
If he achieves nothing, so be it. In fact, on average, he won't achieve much ... but when he does achieve something, it'll blow your mind.
And that little drone you raised, who is desperately trying to catch your attention? He'll focus on titles and milestones. He can verbalize that. He can quantify it. He can get others (and you) to easily recognize his "achievement" ... more to the point, he will always be trying to put you in a position where you MUST give him praise, because you constantly hold it back.
You want to know what that looks like? BA, BS, MS, Phd, JD, 100K salary, BMW, etc. etc. ... easily quantifiable status symbols that can be placed in a study and can be easily used to force the parent to render praise. Is that really achievement?
I'd rather my kid start the next Apple.
I think 'start the next Apple' is just as constrained as what you're dogging.
What about just getting married and raising a great family? Or starting a mechanic shop that lets him fish every afternoon? Living a happy life that they choose and having a positive impact on the people around them. The occupation, money, etc. don't matter so much.
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I've nailed a few of those. My girlfriend has claim on most of the others.
But, at the end of the day, our parents are most proud of us for who we are as human beings and members of society, and not for any titles, salaries or vehicles we possess. And I think that's exactly the way it should be.
I would much rather raise an intellectually curious child who would like to show me the cool project they worked on, or the cool thing they discovered, than one who believes I'll only praise them for a letter grade from an arbitrary third party.
> I'd rather my kid start the next Apple.
Me too, but I'd happily settle for my kid being happy, content and fulfilled with the life they lead, regardless of whether or not that involves creating a Fortune 500.
> he will always be trying to put you in a position where you MUST give him praise, because you constantly hold it back.
> ...easily quantifiable status symbols that can be placed in a study and can be easily used to force the parent to render praise.
Just as a data point, I'd like to add that coming from a childhood of constant praise and overprotective parenting, I am also looking for easily quantifiable symbols of achievement. Growing up under-challenged, for me it was quite the interesting psychological experience to have to face the reality that I've been coasting through high-school and college, and have absolutely no objective idea of my skills or achievements.
What I mean is, each extreme is damaging - lack of praise, but also too much praise. A good middle ground is perhaps objective evaluation of the child's progress, coupled with a good introduction into the art of reasonable persistence.
You can encourage without fawning praise. A combination of letting my kids fail, talking about how to remedy and encouragement to get them over the 'getting started again' hump is working out great for my two kids.
I thought the latest was to praise effort, not achievements. Praising achievements might induce self-consciousness and make kids not try very hard.
Yes. And the latest, well supported by research -- see Carol Dweck, Mindset.
My achievement (rather than effort) was praised. I certainly wish it had been the other way around - I think that would have led to much better work habits, willingness to push through tedious/boring work, etc.
I don't think the bit was about praise, rather the act of stepping back and playing spectator.
If you expand the chapter you'll find the referenced study the author is drawing upon.