We came across an interesting BBC article recently. Called ‘How to unlock your child’s potential’, it quotes research showing that is is far more effective to praise your child’s effort than their talent. So: ‘You have really worked hard to do that’, rather than: ‘Aren’t you a wonderful artist’
‘Practice makes perfect’ is the old adage being applied here. We now know that a huge amount of practice is what creates high achievement and the success of the hyped Tiger Mom approach is really making the same point. Knowledge about the brain now tells us that unremitting practice causes the anatomy of the brain to change, so enabling more success in the skill.
The research quoted by the BBC article makes another important wider point: If children believe that effort makes a big difference, they will keep trying, whereas if they believe it is all due to innate ability they will stop working on things once they get difficult. That looks like the value of self-efficacy again.
Presumably the value of focusing positive feedback on effort rather than talent would apply to adults as well. Often we would gain by spending more time on positive feedback with staff and a useful question to ask adults is how they got to be good at something. Almost invariably you will hear a story of lots of practice, whether from sheer love of the task or from straight determination.
Have a go at building your positive feedback on an idea of accomplishment through hard work. There’s a Fortune magazine article supporting this approach.
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