2
" Ethan’s parents constantly told him how brainy he was. “You’re so smart! You can do anything, Ethan. We are so proud of you, they would say every time he sailed through a math test. Or a spelling test. Or any test. With the best of intentions, they consistently tethered Ethan’s accomplishment to some innate characteristic of his intellectual prowess. Researchers call this “appealing to fixed mindsets.” The parents had no idea that this form of praise was toxic.
Little Ethan quickly learned that any academic achievement that required no effort was the behavior that defined his gift. When he hit junior high school, he ran into subjects that did require effort. He could no longer sail through, and, for the first time, he started making mistakes. But he did not see these errors as opportunities for improvement. After all, he was smart because he could mysteriously grasp things quickly. And if he could no longer grasp things quickly, what did that imply? That he was no longer smart. Since he didn’t know the ingredients making him successful, he didn’t know what to do when he failed. You don’t have to hit that brick wall very often before you get discouraged, then depressed. Quite simply, Ethan quit trying. His grades collapsed.
What happens when you say, ‘You’re so smart’
Research shows that Ethan’s unfortunate story is typical of kids regularly praised for some fixed characteristic. If you praise your child this way, three things are statistically likely to happen:
First, your child will begin to perceive mistakes as failures. Because you told her that success was due to some static ability over which she had no control, she will start to think of failure (such as a bad grade) as a static thing, too—now perceived as a lack of ability. Successes are thought of as gifts rather than the governable product of effort.
Second, perhaps as a reaction to the first, she will become more concerned with looking smart than with actually learning something. (Though Ethan was intelligent, he was more preoccupied with breezing through and appearing smart to the people who mattered to him. He developed little regard for learning.)
Third, she will be less willing to confront the reasons behind any deficiencies, less willing to make an effort. Such kids have a difficult time admitting errors. There is simply too much at stake for failure.
What to say instead: ‘You really worked hard’
What should Ethan’s parents have done? Research shows a simple solution. Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test, they should not have said,“I’m so proud of you. You’re so smart. They should have said, “I’m so proud of you. You must have really studied hard”. This appeals to controllable effort rather than to unchangeable talent. It’s called “growth mindset” praise. "
― John Medina , Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five
13
" A former fighter pilot, teaching at an aeronautics university, discovered how this works in the classroom. One of his students had been a star in ground school but was having trouble in the air. During a training flight, she misinterpreted an instrument reading, and he yelled at her, thinking it would force her to concentrate. Instead, she started crying, and though she tried to continue reading the instruments, she couldn’t focus. He landed the plane, lesson over. What was wrong? From the brain’s perspective, nothing was wrong. The student’s mind was focusing on the source of the threat, just as it had been molded to do over the past few million years. The teacher’s anger could not direct the student to the instrument to be learned because the instrument was not the source of danger. The teacher was the source of danger. This is weapons focus, merely replacing “Saturday Night Special” with “ex-fighter pilot.”
The same is true if you are a parenting a child rather than teaching a student. The brain will never outgrow its preoccupation with survival. "
― John Medina , Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five
15
" Affect detection. First, a person must detect a change in the emotional disposition of someone else. In the behavioral sciences, “affect” means the external expression of an emotion or mood, generally associated with an idea or an action. Kids who are autistic usually don’t get to this step; as a result, they rarely behave with empathy. • Imaginative transposition. Once a person detects an emotional change, he transposes what he observes onto his own psychological interiors. He “tries on” the perceived feelings as if they were clothes, then observes how he would react given similar circumstances. For those of you in the theater, this is the heart of Stanislavski’s Method Acting. For those of you about to have children, you have just begun to learn how to have a fair fight with them, not to mention your spouse. • Boundary formation. The person who is empathizing realizes at all times that the emotion is happening to the other person, never to the observer. Empathy is powerful, but it is also has boundaries. "
― John Medina , Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five