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I suppose it's not a surprise, we push our kids so much.  But did you know that kids praised for being smart, well, cheat more?  According to newswise.com, " An international team of researchers reports that when children are praised for being smart not only are they quicker to give up in the face of obstacles they are also more likely to be dishonest and cheat. Kids as young as age 3 appear to behave differently when told 'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'” I wrote not long ago that I was shocked to learn that kids in my son's honor classes cheat all the time, especially when the teacher is not very alert (they look things up on their smart phones).  "Everybody cheats.  It's because of the competition for good grades," my son said. Isn't it wrong to push our kids so much? The study, co-authored by Gail Heyman of the University of California San Diego, Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, and Lulu Chen and Li Z...

My husband and I argue about this all the time.  He disdains coaches who give everyone on the team a trophy, no matter how they played.  But I'm grateful.  It's the only way our (non-athletic) child will ever get one. But a new study has found that " Parents and other adults heap the highest praise on children who are most likely to be hurt by the compliments," according to newswise.com. The reasoning behind this is that adults seem to give more praise to kids with low self-esteem.  " But while children with high self-esteem seem to thrive with inflated praise, those with low self-esteem actually shrink from new challenges when adults go overboard on praising them." “Inflated praise can backfire with those kids who seem to need it the most – kids with low self-esteem,” the Web site quotes Eddie Brummelman, lead author of the study and a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University in autumn 2013. Now, we're not talking about a "that-a-boy...