In principle, I agree with the authors that kids shouldn't get trophies just for showing up. On the other hand, my six-year-old preteamer is very proud of the two participation trophies she earned in gymnastics and views them as symbols of all of the hard work she has put in. Maybe she didn't deserve a trophy for her rec year, but I sort of agree with her that some recognition was appropriate for surviving her first year of preteam, especially since fewer than half of the girls in her group made it to the end of the year and nearly all of the rest quit over the summer. But if she were ten years old and got a trophy for playing some sport once a week for a two-month season, I would not think much of that trophy.
I am guilty of celebrating new skills with ice cream, but only when it's something she has worked really hard for over a long period of time. When she *finally* got her chin-up pullover (from a dead hang since she is so short that her feet never touch the floor), we let her order the biggest sundae on the menu.
I agree with Mary that the nature of gymnastics encourages each child to strive for better performance on a daily basis. My gymmie doesn't compete yet, but she is constantly motivated to master new skills, improve her form, and show her coach that she is a hard worker just because she loves gymnastics, wants to do it well, and wants to move up a level so she can spend more time in the gym. I don't think a 22nd-place medal in a competition will ever make her think, "Oooh, a medal! I must be so good that I don't have to work hard any more." Even if she did get such a notion, it would only last until about three minutes into her next practice.
I wish the article made more of the distinction between praising innate ability or personal qualities and praising effort or process. The article says this:
"Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, found that kids respond positively to praise; they enjoy hearing that they’re talented, smart and so on. But after such praise of their innate abilities, they collapse at the first experience of difficulty. Demoralized by their failure, they say they’d rather cheat than risk failing again.
In recent eye-tracking experiments by the researchers Bradley Morris and Shannon Zentall, kids were asked to draw pictures. Those who heard praise suggesting they had an innate talent were then twice as fixated on mistakes they’d made in their pictures."
But the article does not go on to discuss how praising and rewarding effort or actions can encourage kids to work hard, try more difficult problems/skills, and achieve more. For example, see
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/14/s...n-for-effort-not-intelligence-study-says.html
http://www.parentingscience.com/praise-and-intelligence.html
