Praising children for effort rather than ability (2021)
I have seen little evidence that there is such thing as natural ability, except in rare cases such as actual geniuses, where the elasticity of the brain cannot adapt to develop that ability.<p>An important lesson children should be taught as earlu as possible is that effort is useless and wasteful if they fail. I agree with perhaps lowering the bar until they develop the skill, but fundamentally engraining tolerance for failure into a child is one of the worst things you can do to a human psyche. It&#x27;s nearly impossible to remove that mindset later ok. In every aspect of their life they won&#x27;t just fail, they&#x27;ll use their supposed natural inability as an excuse for many other harmful ends!<p>I am not suggesting making them feel like losers when they fail. What should happen is you tell them: &quot;You failed and it&#x27;s all your fault, but so long as you learn from your failure and keep trying to succeed, you are on the right path.&quot;<p>Talent, effort, opportunities, genius all mean nothing in the real world without perseverance. The most talentess and clueless fool can succeed beyond anyone else simply by virtue of perseverance and discipline.<p>Praising a child is making them associate a good emotion with the thing they are praised for. Don&#x27;t let that thing be failure. Even worse, don&#x27;t let them believe they are fundamentally flawed and handicapped when that isn&#x27;t true. When they see other kids work hard and succeed, the conclusion is effort is enough because they are incapable anyways.<p>I don&#x27;t even know how the author put together such a horrible advice but please! If you insist on bringing a human into this world, don&#x27;t ruin their chances in life over bullshit like this where the only purpose is to make insincere parents feel good about themselves. Do the right thing which is hard and uncomfortable.