Yes, Kohn’s book is good. I’ve recently read NurtureShock, which is a book about childrearing practices that are contradicted by studies, and Drive, a book about motivation, mostly for businesses but with huge implications for parenting and education.
We all want to praise our kids. But overpraising has some serious consequences–both in leading kids to perform for praise, and in convincing kids that some things are innate and not worth working on. Effective praise is:
1. True. Kids know when you gush over their picture like it belongs in the Guggenheim.
2. Specific. Instead of saying “What a great picture!” compliment the use of color, or the way she drew the flower, or whatever. Instead of saying “Great!” when you see the page of copywork, say that the second line of letters is especially neat.
3. Rare enough to mean something. If you praise every single thing they do all day long, it quickly becomes their “due” and they expect it for everything.
4. When possible, praise EFFORT and not results. Constantly praising results (“You are so smart! You are a great athlete!”) praise how hard they work. (“You really worked hard on that page of math problems. You stuck with it until you figured it out.” “You are putting a lot of effort into practicing the piano.”) Turns out many of us (and I’ve been guilty of this in the past!) tend to give our kids the idea that intelligence and talent are “set in stone”–you’ve either got it or you don’t. So they figure, why try? Either I’m smart, in which case it’s mostly important to show that I am by not working too hard, or I’m not smart and I can’t do anything about it. If we praise effort and process, however, we give our kids the impression that intelligence and talent are things that can be developed if we work hard.
