How not to talk to your kids

New York Magazine has an interesting article about the negative power of overly positive praise of your kids. It hadn't really occurred to me that there was a downside to telling your kids how smart they were. Apparently they found that in some cases the kids were unwilling to try things they weren't initially good at for fear of failure. According to the testing they did, the kids that were praised for their efforts were more willing to try challenging things, while the kids that were praised for their intelligence were more willing to try easier tasks again. Interesting ideas.

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