The Praise That Makes Kids Feel Worse, Not Better
I used to think praise was the one parenting tool that couldn’t hurt anybody. Tell a kid he’s smart. Tell her she’s talented. What’s the downside? It turns out there is one, and it hurts exactly the kids who need encouragement the most.
Two Kinds of Praise
Researchers split praise into two categories. Person praise tells a child who they are: “You’re so smart.” “You’re such a good artist.” Process praise tells a child what they did: “You worked hard on that.” “You figured it out.”
A 2013 study tracked what happened to children after each kind of praise, then watched what happened when those same children later failed at something. Kids who’d been praised for their qualities gave up faster, performed worse, and felt worse about themselves. Kids who’d been praised for their effort kept trying, performed better, and held onto their sense of self-worth.
Here’s the part that stopped me. The same study found that adults reach for person praise most often with kids who already have low self-esteem. We see a child who doubts himself, and our instinct is to tell him he’s smart or talented, because it feels like the thing that will finally convince him. That instinct backfires. The children who most need to hear they’re capable are the ones most damaged by hearing they’re gifted.
A 2016 review of this research confirms the pattern held up in longitudinal follow-up, not just a single lab experiment. This isn’t a fluke. It’s a mechanism.
Why It Backfires
Praise for a trait teaches a child to attribute success to who they are. That sounds like a gift until they fail at something. Then the same logic runs in reverse: if success meant “I’m smart,” failure means “I’m not.” A child praised for effort has no such trap waiting. Effort can vary from day to day without threatening anything about who the child is.
For our kids, many of whom already carry a shaky sense of their own worth, this cycle matters more than it would for a child with a stable foundation. A 2021 study found that childhood trauma and disrupted attachment predict lower self-esteem later on. That study didn’t test foster or stepchildren specifically, and I haven’t seen research that does. But it’s not a stretch to connect the dots. If trauma tends to produce low self-esteem, and low self-esteem is exactly the condition under which trait-praise does the most damage, then Plan B kids are disproportionately the ones at risk from a well-meaning “you’re so smart.”
It’s Not as Simple as “Just Praise the Effort”
I wish the fix were as easy as switching from “you’re smart” to “you worked hard.” A 2018 study indicates the process might be more complicated. Researchers gave children process praise right after they’d failed at something, the kind of praise we’re told is always safe: “You tried so hard.” Kids who were old enough to know they hadn’t really tried that hard, or hadn’t succeeded, responded worse to the insincere praise than they did to no praise at all. This study was a small one, but it indicates a reaction that rings true for me.
Kids know when we’re managing them. A hollow “great effort” after a visible failure doesn’t sound like encouragement. It sounds as if we don’t think they can handle the truth, or that we didn’t notice how badly things actually went.
There’s a second wrinkle. According to a report about a small 2014 study (I could not find the original report), inflated praise, the extra adverb we add without thinking (“incredibly good,” not just “good”), made children with low self-esteem more cautious, not less. Again, it’s a small study, but the finding makes sense. Children with low self-esteem tend to be risk-averse. If we unconsciously raise the bar with extravagant praise, they will start avoiding harder tasks.
What This Looks Like in Practice
None of this means praise is dangerous. It means the specifics matter more than we assume.
“You kept working on that math problem even when it was frustrating” likely helps more than “You’re so good at math.” Praise what a child did, not who a child is.
Skip the adverbs. “You did well” carries less pressure than “You did incredibly well,” even though the second one feels more generous to us.
Don’t paper over a real failure with praise that isn’t true. A child who bombed a test doesn’t need to hear “great effort” if she didn’t make an effort. She needs something honest, even if it’s just “that one was hard, and we’ll figure out what to try next.”
Watch your own instincts around the child who seems to need the most bolstering. If you notice yourself reaching for bigger, warmer, more frequent praise with the kid who doubts himself, that instinct is worth a second look.
Where This Leaves Us
I was hoping to find something different from this research. It would be easier if the answer were simple. We could praise more, praise warmly, and watch self-esteem take care of itself. Instead, the honest answer is that praise is a precise tool, and precision takes more thought than volume.
Our kids came to us with enough reasons to doubt themselves. We don’t get to fix that by handing out compliments. We get to fix it slowly, by noticing what they actually do and describing it to them accurately. That’s a smaller thing to offer than “you’re amazing,” and it’s the thing that actually helps.
Want to go deeper? Encouraging Resilience covers how to build a child’s genuine sense of capability, not just their comfort in the moment.
