For grown-ups

Praising effort: a good idea, but under what conditions?

Your child comes home with an excellent grade. In the moment, you say: “You’re a genius!” The words celebrate success. But what happens at the first exercise they do not understand? If they have learned that success proves they are intelligent, failure may start to look like proof of the opposite. This is one of the questions studied by psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues: the way children interpret their abilities influences how they respond to difficulty. This work made famous the distinction between a fixed mindset, in which intelligence appears to be given once and for all, and a growth mindset, in which abilities can develop through learning. The idea is useful. It has also been simplified so much that it is sometimes reduced to one rule: “Never praise intelligence, always praise effort.” The research tells a more demanding, and more interesting, story.

5 min readLearning · Motivation

AurélieFounder of AFRO BRAIN

What praise teaches a child to understand

In a series of experiments published in 1998, Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck compared how students responded after different kinds of praise. Children praised for their intelligence were subsequently more likely to choose a task that allowed them to keep appearing competent. After a setback, they also showed less favorable responses than children praised for their effort.

This result does not mean that one forbidden word harms a child. It shows that praise communicates an explanation for success. “You’re intelligent” can imply: your performance reveals who you are. “You tried several methods and checked your answer” implies: your choices contributed to your progress.

Context matters. Automatic, exaggerated praise that is disconnected from what the child has just done can feel empty. By contrast, naming a specific strategy gives information they can use again.

Effort is not an end in itself

Saying “at least you tried hard” to a child who has been working for an hour without making progress can be discouraging. They may understand that the adult has not noticed where they are stuck, or that struggling for a long time is enough to learn well.

Useful effort has direction. Should the child reread the instructions? Look for an example? Draw the problem? Take a break? Ask for an explanation? Return to an earlier concept? Persistence is one strategy among others, not a virtue to be pushed to exhaustion.

A growth mindset therefore does not require smiling through every difficulty. It can instead replace “I’m not made for this” with a question: “What can’t I do yet, and what do I need in order to move forward?” The word “yet” is not magic. It becomes credible when the child receives time, appropriate teaching, understandable feedback and permission to change methods.

Real effects, but not miracles

Interventions designed to teach a growth mindset have produced mixed results. Several meta-analyses conclude that average effects on academic achievement are small, sometimes very small, and sensitive to study quality. Other research finds targeted benefits, particularly for some students and in environments where school norms genuinely support the idea that everyone can improve.

These findings do not cancel one another out. They require us to distinguish a plausible psychological idea from a universal recipe. A short lesson about the brain or a poster saying “mistakes help us grow” cannot compensate for inadequate teaching, unequal expectations or a lack of support. Messages to the child operate within a context.

This matters particularly when some students already face stereotypes about their abilities. Asking them to adopt the right mindset without examining opportunities to learn, the quality of feedback or how they are treated would shift responsibility onto them. Progress never depends on positive thinking alone.

Praising the process without reciting a formula

You do not need to monitor every word. Instead, ask what your feedback teaches the child.

After success, you can describe the process: “You spotted your mistake and started the calculation again from the beginning.” After failure: “That method didn’t help you move forward. We’re going to try another one.” With unfinished work: “You stayed focused for twenty minutes. Now tell me where you started to lose track.”

These sentences avoid two traps. The first is turning success into an identity: the good student, the gifted child, the one who always understands quickly. The second is celebrating effort even when it leads nowhere. In both cases, the adult remains attentive to the actual process.

What the research does not say

Research does not say that the word “intelligent” must be banned, or that one isolated compliment permanently fixes a child’s personality. Nor does it say that praising effort automatically makes a child resilient or improves their grades.

It invites us to examine the meaning created by repeated feedback. Does the child learn that their worth depends on performance? That asking for help is failure? That working longer is always the right answer? Or do they learn that abilities develop through strategies, explanations, attempts and learning conditions that can be improved?

What you can do in practice

Describe before evaluating. “You used three colors to organize your ideas” is more informative than “well done, you’re so good at this.”

Connect effort to a strategy. Name what helped: rereading, comparing, practising, asking for an example, correcting.

Allow a change of method. Persisting does not mean repeating the same action indefinitely.

Normalize revision. Show your drafts, your corrections and the moments when you ask for help.

Check the conditions. Before asking for more effort, ask whether the instructions are understood and whether the child has the support they need.