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It's Dumb To Tell Kids They're Smart

Posted by timothy on from the converse-is-also-true dept.

theodp writes Over at Khan Academy, Salman Khan explains Why I'm Cautious About Telling My Son He's Smart. "Recently," writes Khan, "I put into practice research I had been reading about for the past few years: I decided to praise my son not when he succeeded at things he was already good at, but when he persevered with things that he found difficult. I stressed to him that by struggling, your brain grows. Between the deep body of research on the field of learning mindsets and this personal experience with my son, I am more convinced than ever that mindsets toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach." According to Dr. Carol Dweck, who Khan cites, the secret to raising smart kids is not telling kids that they are. A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.

34 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. No no by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2, Funny

    Your children are precious and if unable or unwilling to achieve things for themselves we must institute a quota system in order that they can bring their unique life perspective to various public and private roles.

    1. Re:No no by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "No, son, you're not smart. Everyone else is stupid, and they're interested in boring things, and they always take the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance is mostly safe, but if you want to be anyone you have to make your own way."

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    2. Re:No no by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Praise the kid for good ideas, but also ask your kid - how do you think this or that could be better?

      To be smart means that you don't stop thinking of how things can be better.

      And don't get angry at your kids because they take things apart - they learn from it. Pulling apart a cheap mechanical alarm clock to learn how it's made is part of the learning process. Unfortunately most modern devices are just bricks - there's nothing to learn from taking them apart.

      It's also part of the learning process to know how hard you can pull a screw before it breaks. You can list and use all the torque numbers in the world, but sometimes having the right feeling for how hard you can tighten a screw - and how it feels when it's done right is worth a lot more than having an advanced torque-limiting tool.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:No no by Frobnicator · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Praise the kid for good ideas, but also ask your kid - how do you think this or that could be better?

      Those are part of it, but really the report is just that Khan discovered something well-known in education.

      Really, it is well known for everybody involved in motivation.

      You get more of whatever you recognize.

      Any school teacher can explain how when you point out the bad behavior, "Johnny, sit back down", you have rewarded the child. It may not be what most people think of as recognition, but it serves to reinforce the behavior.

      When you recognize a child "You are smart", or "You are so fast", or other attributes that they cannot control, it can have many negative effects. One negative effect is the child can become complacent. They may think to themselves, I'm already good enough, I don't need to do any more. When that happens the child will quickly stop succeeding. Another negative effect is the child can become fearful. They may think to themselves, I don't know what I did to become smart, what if I'm not smart enough tomorrow? What if I lose it? I've seen this happen to several children who quickly break down.

      Instead, educators are taught to reward effort when they see it. Publicly praise how Johnny has worked hard on the project. Comment about how it looks like Jenny spent many hours researching the detail. When you are uncertain, praise anyway, "It must have taken some effort to prepare all of this, good job."

      Those families that encourage learning tend to also reward and encourage effort. There may be a few of the "you're so smart" complements, but there will also be statements like "Good job figuring those details out", "That looks complicated, it must have taken effort to understand", "You studied a lot", etc. Generally the focus is (and should be) on rewarding the effort and the completion of tasks rather than rewarding the natural state.

      Rounding it out, for kids in sports you complement "Good job working hard at practice today" to reward the effort rather than "Good job at being so tall" which is something they cannot control.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
    4. Re:No no by Frobnicator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you only ever praise effort instead of achievement you will wind up with a generation of morons that think they're great just for trying even when they never get anything done.

      Let's try again...

      rewarding the effort and the completion of tasks rather than rewarding the natural state.

      Trying to reward "being smart" is ineffectual at best. Similarly it is ineffectual to reward basketball players just for being tall, or reward a junior player simply for being young, or reward a senior player simply for being senior.

      Rewarding effort and completion are effective at teaching students that those (rather than the grades or being first place) are important. If being first place is the only thing that matters then means are unimportant: break the opponent's equipment, or even put your opponent in the hospital, to reach the goal of being first. If grades are more important than learning, cheat from your neighbor or hack the grade book so you can get the rewarded grade.

      When the rewards focus only on the final scores you get children who value the wrong things. Once their life of cheating in school is done, it transitions to the real world into lying, cheating, and stealing to get other outcomes without putting in effort or completing work. Or, if they use those patterns in management to try to encourage others they will be confused about why those same patterns fail to produce positive results.

      Real world example:

      At one place I worked several years ago there was a team of 6 salespeople. Management wanted to get the most sales out of them, so they created a reward. They made a big poster and charted sales, the highest sales would get a paid trip to a fabulous resort plus some spending money. Most of the salesfolk instantly gave up. In the first week there was a clear leader: The senior salesperson was about quadruple everyone else. By the end of the first month the senior person polished off another deal; they were at over $200K three were between $50K and $20K, and the two intern-type grunts were around $5k each. The reason was obvious to several of us, the senior salesperson worked with management to build and sign the corporate contracts, the three medium-tier people had a collection of established regular customers, and the entry level noobs were stuck with cold calls. After three months the senior salesperson acted all thankful and grateful for the challenge, the attitude of 'better luck next time' to those who obviously never had a chance. When I talked with the mangers about it they were confused about why the interns were upset and why the more experienced workers weren't putting in an effort to win. They couldn't understand it because their own value system only valued the end goal and competition rather than effort, cooperation, and completion. Their challenge rewarded tenure rather than growth. Sales were down significantly over those months. The end result was less money for the business, reduced morale, and one of the salesfolk quitting over it.

      A far better system would have been to set an ambitious combined sales goal, and all those who helped cross some boundaries get the reward. The tenured staff then has an incentive to help the beginners succeed, and everyone has an incentive to increase total sales. Instead of rewarding the natural and immutable situation of tenure, they could have rewarded effort and completion of sales. Everyone whose efforts contribute to the completion of the goal gets the rewards. These systems tend to work well as incentives. For example, "If we meet X we'll have a team party", or "everyone who meets goal X will get two days off." Those who have crossed the threshold typically then help their peers to also cross the threshold.

      Rewarding "You sure are smart", or "You sure are tall", or "you sure have tenure" is just plain stupid. It might feel good to the person giving the reward and the person getting the reward, but to outsiders it is usually painfully obvious that the system is broken.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
  2. They always told me I was so smart... by ZorinLynx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funny thing is I was told all the time growing up that I was "extremely smart" and "gifted", when in reality, I didn't FEEL like I was.

    Sure, I could do things with computers that few of the other kids could do, like program and build things. But I don't think I was "smart". I just LIKED doing those things, so I did them all the time, and thus became really good at those things.

    Meanwhile, you could ask me to cook a meal at the time and I'd completely fail because I never cooked. I didn't enjoy it, and was thus lousy at it.

    I don't think I was unusually "smart" or "gifted". I just got obsessed with computers and technology, so I got good at those things.

    1. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Livius · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I figured out I was smart as a kid.

      I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.

    2. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I had a similar experience. I excelled at math, science, computers, anything like that. I maintained good grades and was consistently at the top of my class. I was always praised for being smart and my future with a great job and a nice house was all but assured. After graduating college with an engineering degree and a 3.8 GPA, I was practically unemployable. I was either told I had no experience or was seen as a flight risk. So here I am on the backside of thirty, stuck in a dead-end job making drunken posts on the internet about how much I hate 3D printers and Space Nutters. Hell, it even got me banned from FARK.

      I wish no one ever set me up to fail. by telling me I am smart, giving me such high expectations. I wish someone would have slapped my 4-year old head and said "good grades don't put food on the table, go get a real job!"

    3. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.

      Intelligence isn't a liability. Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability.

      Intelligence isn't a liability, but the interpersonal skills you developed around your intelligence might be. (If you're so smart, you should have figured this out by now. Maybe you need to work harder).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      To some degree there's a difference between ability and capability. If you absolutely needed to learn how to be an excellent cook, would you have the capacity to do so? Being a good cook takes work, much like anything else, and I believe it extends beyond simply being able to follow a recipe that perhaps only a genuine passion for cooking can engender. However there are a lot of people who struggle to program and often it goes beyond coding ability and has more to do with fundamental problem solving skills.

      Another aspect of your feelings may be related to knowing enough to know your limitations. At least for me personally, the more I've learned, the more I've realized that there's so much more to learn and that all of it comes with an opportunity cost. Sure, I could learn how to repair my own car and fix any of the problems it might have, but I'd much rather just know enough to take care of the basics and leave the rest to someone else who's more interested in that line of work while I stick to computers. Meanwhile both my mechanic and I are enabling someone else who's really interested in curing cancer to devout more of their time to those pursuits.

      In the modern world it doesn't really matter if you're terrible at 99% of things if that 1% of things that your good at is valuable to everyone else. Most people are smart in some regard and likely choose to specialize in it. Sure there might be people who are more capable than others in terms of acquiring degrees of proficiency in arbitrary areas, but more than likely they'll end up specializing in a particular field and have a few hobbies on the side. If you can add value, does it really matter what percentiles you fall into?

    5. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 2

      I didn't need anyone to tell me I was smart. I figured it out myself. As you say, I was "smart" at the subjects I loved and not so much at others. Now, as an "elder", I tell those coming up If you want to be rich and-or famous, develop your talents. But if you want to be happy, work on your weaknesses: Become round.

      BTW, If someone had told me life could be so good at 71 years, I'd have had more courage in my youth.

    6. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.

      Intelligence isn't a liability. Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability.

      You don't have to tell people you are smarter directly. I spooked the hell out of a girlfriend who had a crazy 3 on 5 off (with other kinks in the pattern) schedule because, after 2 weeks, I had it figured out and when we were making plans for something next week, I told her when she was working and when she was free: "how'd you know that?" "Well, you're working tomorrow and it's time for the 4 week long break..." "I only know my schedule by looking it up..." "Oh...."

      People who perceive you are smarter (whether you are, or not) will often treat you as a threat. http://abcnews.go.com/Business...

      Icahn has called CEOs the survivors of the corporate world, but says it's the "survival of the unfittest": "[The CEO] would never have anyone underneath him as his assistant that's brighter than he is because that might constitute a threat. So therefore, with many exceptions, we have CEO's becoming dumber and dumber and dumber."

    7. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Pulzar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've figured I was smart when I was sent to a special school that only accepted people with high IQ. It was arguably the worse year of my life.

      I had the opposite experience. For the first time in my schooling years, I felt like I fit in, and I developed my social skills and found new confidence in myself. I was very happy to be there.

      Like they say, every kid is different, there's no universal formula to explain what will work and what won't.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    8. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Nephandus · · Score: 2

      If you don't, you're literally psychotic. Reality isn't up for voting and doesn't reflect mob sentiment. Anyone who believes otherwise has no grasp of reality, is certainly mentally defective regardless of social privileges, and is psychologically, philosophically, scientifically, etc. inferior to those that comprehend otherwise.

      --
      "A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
    9. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Nephandus · · Score: 2

      Being accurate about which algorithm is faster and whether faster is better in a given context is better there, and assuming subjective measures are objective is inaccurate, so again being accurate is better than being inaccurate...

      --
      "A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
    10. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by Dragon+Bait · · Score: 2

      Intelligence isn't a liability.

      It certainly can be. With schools aiming for the middle or least common denominator, intelligent kids get bored and don't live up to their potential. The kid that is motivated and has to struggle is far ahead in this system than the kid that is intelligent, finds everything easy, and gets bored with it all.

    11. Re:They always told me I was so smart... by reanjr · · Score: 2

      Intelligence can be a liability when you are surrounded by people who continuously spew a stream on nonsense from their mouth holes. When you know every word coming from someone's mouth is utter bullshit, lies, misunderstandings, or misdirection, it's not appropriate to blame poor social skill when you treat that person like a worthless piece of shit.

  3. What about Confidence by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But if you don't puff up your offspring with enough praise early one, how will they have the iron-cast confidence to windbag their way to the top in todays bullshit world? Again, what use is true intelligence if you don't have the bellicosity to shout down all gainsayers?

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
    1. Re:What about Confidence by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But if you don't puff up your offspring with enough praise early one, how will they have the iron-cast confidence to windbag their way to the top in todays bullshit world?

      You didn't read the articles. The point uncovered in the research is that telling kids they are smart gives them less confidence (presumably because they are afraid failure means they are not smart, so they are afraid to try).

      When you are raising kids, and he accomplishes something, you have two options (actually more, but these are under consideration here):
      1) Say, "you succeeded! You must be so smart!"
      2) Say, "you succeeded! You must have worked hard!"

      Eventually your kid is going to fail, because we all do, know matter how smart we are, and kid #1 is going to say inside himself, "oh, I am not smart. Maybe if I don't try next time, no one will notice." Kid #2 will say inside himself, "oh, I failed. Maybe next time if I work harder, I will succeed."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:What about Confidence by sunhou · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Unless kid #2 in fact had tried very hard but still failed, and says to himself, "Even my best attempt was not good enough. Next time I won't try so hard; that way, if I fail, I can just claim/believe it's because I didn't try my best." There are many ways to try and protect one's confidence in the face of failure.

      Not that I disagree with the basic premise here, that it's better to praise kids for effort (something they can control) than intrinsic talents.

    3. Re:What about Confidence by eulernet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "oh, I failed. Maybe next time if I work harder, I will succeed."

      And this is why we have so much people working too hard and filled with stress, because they hope to "succeed".

      The idea is to replace "I can do it because I'm smart" with "I can do it if I put more effort".
      Frankly, both of these are beliefs, and dangerous ones at that !
      What happens when you realize that you cannot do it, no matter the amount of effort ?

      Why not simply encourage curiosity and open-mindedness, instead on focusing on results ?
      Is the result so much more important than the way to do things ?

    4. Re:What about Confidence by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And this is why we have so much people working too hard and filled with stress, because they hope to "succeed".

      To counteract that problem, make sure your kids know you will love them no matter what happens.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. Smart. Dumb. Doesn't matter. by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Success is about being in the right place at the right time with the correct skill set to take advantage of the situation. Hard work is the way you maximize your skill sets to that should you find yourself at the intersection of time and place you take advantage of it. The thing is, not only can't that intersection be anticipated, it can't be identified even when it's happening. Only in hindsight can you look back and realize where the critical moment was when your success actually started. Sadly, most people can't even do that. They believe that climbing the mountain of success was solely the result of having applied their skills and hard work, never realizing that - as the result of fortuitous time and place of their application - they were actually running down hill from that point on.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:Smart. Dumb. Doesn't matter. by E-Rock · · Score: 2

      Don't forget knowing the right people. In my experience, that matters a lot more than what you know or what you're capable of doing.

  5. Re:So, I'm doing it wrong by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

    Dogs are cute cats that are also dumb. Encourage your dog with a growth mindset and one day he may be a cat.

  6. Definition of Irony by Wraithlyn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability [...] If you're so smart, you should have figured this out by now.

    You literally just did this with your own post. You told the parent he was wrong, and then implied it was because he wasn't smart enough.

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  7. Re: This is stupid advice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Import talent from abroad? Yes, it definitely works. You only need someplace to dump stupid americans into, to make room for the talented immigrants.

  8. Re:Still not adding up by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

    If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to?

    Because there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success. Unfortunately the second article is partially paywalled, but I don't see anything in it that asserts otherwise. Do not misconstrue the following excerpt:

    A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.

    One could read that and jump to the conclusion that this means that intelligence is not related to success. But that is not what it is saying. It is merely saying that if you butter-up an intelligent person, they will be more likely to fail. That is not the same as saying that IQ is not related to success.

  9. Re:Still not adding up by m00sh · · Score: 2

    If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to? Why has funding for students who, as they say, "are merely bright, but not gifted" entirely disappeared in favor of a fully mainstream approach? Why are the hard working students who achieve but who are not obvious savants lumped in with the merely average, and worst, the probably hopeless (whatever the reason)?

    Psychologists said that over 50 years ago but they do not say that all anymore. There was a famous experiment where the kid's IQs were tested and later on after 20-30 years their success measured. The higher IQ were no better off than the average IQ. In fact, a randomly selected group of kids were as successful as the high IQ group.

    Psychologists actually say there isn't a strong link between IQ and success. There is a minimum IQ (which is fairly low) and above that IQ everyone has an equal chance. The most used analogy to this is height in basketball. There is a certain height after which height is not an advantage. Basketball is not full of the tallest people and successful people are not the people with the highest IQs.

    Is this real science, or feel good "also-ran" science for the ignorant and unspecial, as one might be led to believe if one actually believed psychology was anything like actual science? We all want to believe articles like this are true, IQ is a bitter pill to swallow and one that seems even murkier the more one reads about it, however it represents our cultures mindset towards success. No company wants a merely bright hard-working person, they want a genius, they worship that genius. Give an academic institution a test, and they will run off with the truly exceptional students (the SATs allegedly correlate to IQ at 0.82, so they actually DO this). Give a corporation that test and they'll probably rather do without than hire anyone with an IQ below 120, which of course, represents the majority of people.

    Companies do not want geniuses, they want people who are team players and will fit in the company culture. Even Google has published reports that they cannot correlate the success of an employee to any measurable metric like GPA, or how good they were at the brain teasers. It has been well known that the highest IQ, GPA or what-not employees are not the most successful.

    I prefer to believe what is in this article in the same way that I prefer to believe in Free Will, but, however disappointing this may be, this does not reflect the prevailing attitudes of people that matter. Nothing in this article is substantial enough to use as a weapon to change education, and ultimately it's just feel good drivel, much like I think the IQ studies to date are, although sadly they represent the established convention. From a magazine like Scientific American I want something I can USE to make change.

    If you have a really low IQ, you're too dumb to care. If you have a medium or high IQ, it does not affect your chance of success.

    Another analogy is that IQ is like speed. A higher IQ can person can get somewhere faster than a person of lower IQ. It does not mean a higher IQ person can get to places that a lower IQ person cannot. So, what is more important is the direction that you go rather than the speed.

  10. Re:You don't need to tell a smart kid they're smar by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

    They figure it out on their own

    This is one of the differences between intelligent and unintelligent people. Intelligent people are more likely to judge their own skills.

    1. There was a study performed where they assigned people various tasks to perform in isolation. Then the researchers asked them to weigh how well they did compared to the general public. In the absense of information, the more intelligent people assumed they did average or below. The less intelligent people thought they did above average. The bad news about this is it means less intelligent people might not actually realize it.

    2. I had a neighbor whose son was truly stupid. He was a pre-teen, and his mom was using drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy. Sometimes we would play Dance Dance Revolution together sometimes. No matter what the result of the game, he would always think he did great, or at least was really close to beating me. His responses were completely unrelated to how well he actually did. It was a bit awkward actually.

  11. Re:So, I'm doing it wrong by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A cat's purpose in life is to wage psychological warfare upon you; it's only right and proper that you retaliate in kind.

    Dogs are for companionship. Cats are to keep you on your toes.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  12. Effort education can be done very wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I met a kid that transferred from one of those "grade on effort" rather than "grade on accomplishment" schools. They rewarded kids for how hard they tried, not how well they did, and the kids did exactly what any self-respecting sociopath would do: they pretended to try hard.

    This kid was raging at her teacher for giving her an F on her spelling test. She kept saying "i tried as hard as I could, and the teacher KNOWS I am a bad speller!" But (as far as I know) the kid had not spent a single minute of her week actually studying for the test. She tried during the test, which does no good at all. And, in her prior environment, she would have been given an A and the teachers would have been patting their own backs at what a good job they were doing at encouraging a learning mindset.

    I agree in principle....the value of "its ok to fail so long as you try" is very worthwhile to instill in the kids. But the value of "I get away with failure if I convince people I tried" is pure poison. One must be very careful not to instill the latter when aiming for the former.

  13. Don't call me smart ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    I'm very good with computers. I've been messing with them since 1978 and I was in on the digital revolution.

    It's also my career and it's been good for me. I give back by helping people with these TV typewriters.

    When people tell me how smart I am, I'm quick to ask them to please withdraw the remark. Beside creating a wedge between me and them, it is simply unwarranted.

    I ask them what they do. Of course, whatever it is, I can't do that. I'm an expert with computers. If I were on THEIR turf, I tell them, THEY would be the smart one.

    I'm not smarter than anyone else.

    For computers, I'm certainly most experienced than most.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  14. Didn't matter what my parents said by Nyder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From the time I was born, my parents lied to me. By the time I was 10, I realized that adults where full of shit when they talked to kids.

    --
    Be seeing you...