NurtureShock

Praise

NurtureShock talks about praise that fosters a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset, but it doesn't talk about other kinds of praise (evaluative vs. descriptive or appreciative) and the effects these different kinds of praise can have.

The Praise wikipage is where I've collected together the resources I've liked best on these different kinds of praise. What I've included below is just the parts of that wikipage that complement what's in the NurtureShock chapter on praise.

For an article on praise that I've found particularly helpful that has many examples of praising effort, go to:

http://4sharing.wulfenfoo.org/PraiseIsImportantToRaisingAConfidentChild.html

Here are some more suggestions for finding ways to give descriptive praise and appreciative praise from the website for the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

From: http://mindsetonline.com/forum/parentsteach/

Ask them how they went about it and show them how you appreciate their choices, their thinking process, or their persistence. Ask them about strategies that didn't work and what they learned from them. When they make mistakes, use these as occasions for teaching them to come up with new strategies. … Look for ways to convey your valuing of effort, perseverance, and learning …

For a shorter version of what's in the NurtureShock chapter on praise, see the following webpage which includes many examples and suggestions for how to cite specific behaviors in the praise that you give:

http://motionmathgames.com/how-to-praise-your-child-and-encourage-a-growth-mindset/

Jump-starting language abilities

Chapter 10 was my favorite chapter in NurtureShock. Like many people, I'd heard of the research that was done back in 1994 that's described in the excerpts below. They do such an interesting job in this book of showing how people that are in the old groove do things that are so much the opposite of what the new research has shown to be more important. This was particularly striking in this chapter, and I found it fascinating to read about the new research.

Hart and Risley found that infants in welfare families heard about 600 words per hour. Meanwhile, the infants of working-class families heard 900 words per hour, and the infants of professional-class families heard 1,500 words per hour.

… This richness of language exposure had a very strong correlation to the children’s resulting vocabulary. By their third birthday, children of professional parents had spoken vocabularies of 1,100 words, on average, while the children of welfare families were less than half as articulate—speaking only 525 words, on average.

The complexity, variety, and sheer amount of language a child hears is certainly one driver of language acquisition. But it’s not scientifically clear that merely hearing lots of language is the crucial, dominant factor. For their part, Hart and Risley wrote pages listing many other variables at play, all of which had correlations with the resulting rate at which the children learned to speak. ...

If there’s one main lesson from this newest science, it’s this: the basic paradigm has been flipped. The information flow that matters most is in the opposite direction we previously assumed. The central role of the parent is not to push massive amounts of language into the baby’s ears; rather, the central role of the parent is to notice what’s coming from the baby, and respond accordingly—coming from his mouth, his eyes, and his fingers. ...

I plan on posting more excerpts from this chapter when I get the chance.