All parents should read Dr. Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset! I know that all of us parents love our children and want the best for them, but unfortunately, what we don’t realize is that sometimes we are stunting their success and happiness. And to make matters worse, our good intentions are hurting our children in the exact area in which we are enthusiastically and passionately trying to help them…

You see, we all want the best for our children. And when they do something good, like bring home a good report card or score a goal at the soccer game, we praise our kids for the good they’ve done. But, perhaps, according to Dr. Dweck, we should show more restraint and not praise them for their good deed, or at least be careful about the words we choose to use when praising them for doing something good.

Our good intentions to praise our children when they do something good makes them dread the day when the praise will stop because it did not produce the desired results, a victory of some kind. Our well-intentioned praise inadvertently makes our children afraid of failure. And what’s worse, it can make them hesitate to try something difficult to do.

How can we as parents lay the foundation and open the shipping lanes for our children to become the kind of people who live amazing lives? In fact, we can start by automatically stopping praising our children for their victories and praising their effort and courage to take on challenges. We need to do this new type of recognition regardless of whether they fail or succeed at these newer and more complicated things.

Now, as my grandfather always said, “Go learn, lead, and lead the way to a better world for all of us.” Praise the effort, not just the victory. Eventually, praising initiative and effort will create more success than one could have imagined. And once again parents, thank you in advance for all you do and will do…