Last month, David and I had the privilege of presenting a workshop on music and mastery motivation at the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) national conference in
The way that parents and teachers communicate to a child around effort can be critical to their motivation to mastery. One might believe they are being very supportive when they say, “Look how fast you did that puzzle! You’re so smart.” However, this pattern is setting the child up for a performance orientation. When the child encounters a difficult task that requires effort, they may feel that they’re not smart. To promote mastery motivation, instead say, “I really like how hard you worked on that. You should be so proud.”
Mastery motivation is something we work on every day at our Children, Inc. centers, as it is so important to elementary school success. The key message to teachers and parents is to remember to praise effort not intelligence. Research has shown that praising intelligence actually harms motivation and importance. If we want our children to be persistent on task and to seek out challenging problems, we must be consistent in our praising of effort.
Tom Lottman
Project Director
Growing Sound
