Praising kids with low self-esteem can backfire, says study

It's only natural for parents to want to build healthy self-esteem in their children. After all, success in life is largely determined by a person's belief that they can overcome challenging obstacles.

Yet a new study from Ohio State University shows that when parents heap inflated praise upon kids with low-self esteem it can actually cause more harm than good.

"Parents seemed to think that children with low self-esteem need extra praise to make them feel better," says study co-author and psychology professor Brad Bushman. "It's understandable why adults would do that, but we found that this inflated praise can backfire in these children."

The researchers considered non-inflated praise to include statements such as "You're good at this," while inflated praise used the addition of words such as "incredibly" or "perfect."

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The study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, found that kids with low self-esteem were more likely to shy away from tackling new challenges if they were given excessive praise.

"If you tell a child with low self-esteem that they did incredibly well, they may think they always need to do incredibly well," says lead author Eddie Brummelman. "They may worry about meeting those high standards and decide not to take on any new challenges."

The researchers conducted a series of three experiments to arrive at their conclusions.

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The first experiment revealed that adults have a natural tendency to use inflated praise about twice as much when dealing with kids with low self-esteem.

The second experiment, which involved 114 parents (mostly mothers), found that parents gave inflated praise to children with low self-esteem more than they did to children with high self-esteem.

In the final experiment, 240 kids were tasked with drawing Van Gogh's painting Wild Roses. They either received no praise, non-inflated praise or inflated praise from someone identified as a professional painter.

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The children were then told they were going to draw another picture. This time they were told they could choose pictures that were easy to do, "but you won't learn much." Or they could choose to draw more difficult pictures in which "you might make many mistakes, but you'll definitely learn a lot too."

The results? Kids with low self-esteem were more likely to choose the easy drawing with less rewards if they were given inflated praise beforehand.

Do the findings of this study suggest parents should entirely give up praising children with low self-esteem? Probably not.

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Common sense would dictate that keeping praise in line with reality is likely a safe bet for helping your child develop their confidence. For example, point out areas of improvement along with the praise.

Furthermore, previous research indicates that parents might be better off praising their kid's efforts rather than accomplishments.

A study published last year revealed that when mothers praised the effort as opposed to the accomplishments of their children, their kids showed greater motivation and positive attitudes towards challenging obstacles.