I love this statement by Dr. Alize Pressman,

“Competence builds confidence, not praise.”

So much pushback from kids comes from the frustration, or fear, of failure. Celebrate the path to little wins, focus on what they can do on their journey to doing more difficult things… and students start to shine.

Praise builds expectations of repeat performances. When students can’t hit those targets they lose confidence, or they stop trying… because it was so hard to get that praise and they aren’t convinced they can work that hard again. Or worse, they did work harder but didn’t hit the mark worthy of praise anyway. How disheartening is that? It’s definitely not a confidence builder.

“How did that make you feel?” is a question that fosters a student’s confidence. “That looks amazing, good job!” is a statement that puts pressure on repeated performance, and fosters performance anxiety.

“Competence builds confidence, not praise.”