Don't Praise Your Child For Being Smart. He'll Cheat

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 Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University in China, builds on other research that showed that praising a child’s innate ability instead of the child's effort or a specific behavior has the unintended consequence of reducing their motivation to learn and their ability to deal with setbacks, the web site reports. 

The present study shows there’s also a moral dimension to different kinds of praise and that it affects children at younger ages than previously known. Even the kindergarten and preschool set seem to be sensitive to subtle differences in praise. 

“It’s common and natural to tell children how smart they are,” says co-author Gail Heyman, a development psychologist at UC San Diego. “Even when parents and educators know that it harms kids’ achievement motivation, it’s still easy to do. What our study shows is that the harm can go beyond motivation and extend to the moral domain.  It makes a child more willing to cheat in order to do well.”

In one study, published recently in Developmental Science, the same co-authors show that the consequences are similar even when children are not directly praised for their smarts but are merely told that they have a reputation for being smart. 

Why? The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t. When children are praised for being smart or are told that they have a reputation for it, adds co-author Li Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University, "they feel pressure to perform well in order to live up to others' expectations, even if they need to cheat to do so."

What a horrible way to live!

I admit I was not a good student, excelling only at what I loved best, English and creative writing. (Don't ask me about math.)  But I never felt compelled to cheat, maybe because I wasn't a great student.

Back in those days, parents didn't expect you to get into Yale.  UConn was fine.  Today friends of mine obsess about the Ivy League and push their kids to participate in endless activities to up their chances of getting into Yale or Harvard.  Is this really the way we want our kids to grow up?

I admit I'm pretty much of a pushover, and that's probably not so great for my son, because, if he doesn't want to do something, I (usually) don't make him.  But as he's now a junior in high school, and college applications and admission looms, I'm starting to regret a little that I haven't pushed more.

Maybe it's because we're late-in-life parents, but my husband said recently, "I want him to grow up happy.  He has enough time before he needs to work himself to death."  

Kind of makes sense to me.