# Praise

**How should we praise our child?**

How you tell a child they have done well: lots of enthusiastic praise, specific praise, praise for effort, or low-key acknowledgment.

In short: Parents choose between 5 main approaches: Frequent enthusiastic praise; Specific praise of behavior; Praise for effort (Dweck); Descriptive acknowledgment (Faber and Mazlish); Minimal (Kohn). Evidence: experts disagree. Credible bodies or researchers disagree — decide whose guidance you'll weigh. Best settled: toddler.

- Area: Discipline and behavior
- Evidence: Experts disagree
- Best settled: Toddler
- First published: 2026-10-03
- Last updated: 2026-10-05
- Page: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/topics/discipline-and-behavior--praise

## Praise: what are the options?

1. **Frequent enthusiastic praise**: You praise often and warmly ("great job!").
2. **Specific praise of behavior**: You say exactly what the child did well.
3. **Praise for effort (Dweck)**: You praise how hard they tried, not how clever they are.
4. **Descriptive acknowledgment (Faber and Mazlish)**: You describe what you see ("you put your shoes away") without judging it.
5. **Minimal (Kohn)**: You keep praise rare, so the child acts for their own reasons.

## Praise: what does the evidence say?

**Experts disagree.** Credible bodies or researchers disagree — decide whose guidance you'll weigh.

Praising intelligence undermined motivation relative to praising effort; inflated praise predicted lower self-esteem

Sources:

- [Mueller & Dweck](https://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/courses/3615/Readings/Mueller_Dweck.pdf)
- [Brummelman et al.](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12936)

## What else is worth knowing?

Praise shapes what a child thinks is valued. Praising effort and describing what you saw are thought to encourage persistence more than praising talent. How much you praise at all is a matter of style.

## Questions to ask each other

- How do we each praise our child, and does it feel natural?
- Do we want to praise results or effort?
- How will we handle it if our child gets praised for something we think is the wrong thing?

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General information, not medical advice. Two parents can each answer this and compare: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/explore?cat=discipline-and-behavior&topic=discipline-and-behavior--praise