Praising Effort Or Proficiency- Which One Is Better For Your Parenting Goals

Introduction

In today’s world if a child should be evaluated on praising effort or on proficiency in a given task depends on your parenting goals. It is easy to find articles and arguments debating the same. Most notably when the subject comes up, I think of sporting events where scores aren’t kept and everyone gets a participation trophy.

I am sure your personal experiences on the subject mean you already have an opinion. Social media platforms rely on brevity to get their point across. So many inputs are vying for our
attention. How else do they get you to read their post instead of scrolling past?

With this brevity, many messages are diluted to the point where a full understanding of a message gets lost. Or worse, mistaken, taken out of context, or applied inappropriately. That’s what has happened here. Praising effort and grading proficiency each have their place in the world. Let’s get back to basics and understand when to use which, and why!

When To Praise Effort

Praising effort, or more accurately the process of trying, learning, and practicing something, is integral in a child’s development. It helps develop their internal motivation and drive. Children learn to enjoy the process for the experience. Their personal growth in proficiency as part of the outcome is a bonus for them. They want to do it because it excites them, challenges them, and is enjoyable.

People who have an internal drive to do something take it upon themselves because they want to. It can be tinkering with electronics, practicing that basketball shot, or delving further into any subject than required. They are intrinsically motivated to learn more.

They become the children who will later make extra time to study if they want a “B” grade to be an “A” on the next assignment or report card without bribery or praise as a motivating factor.
The time to praise effort is during this discovery phase. When a child is learning to walk, you praise the effort each time. Sometimes they will walk ten steps. Other times only two before falling. This process continues back and forth until they become proficient enough to trip or fall only occasionally, perhaps because they were caught off guard. Now take that example and apply it in other situations. Practicing the ABCs. Learning to ride a bike, read, swim, or drive. Training and onboarding for their first job!

Encouraging your child’s effort during the learning phase will reap lifelong benefits. The child who is internally motivated to learn and continue improving his knowledge will continue to do so in work and throughout their life.

When To Grade Proficiency

Grading proficiency is an evaluation method. Most often, people will evaluate proficiency after a phase of learning. There are several scenarios where you want to determine proficiency. The most commonly thought of include academics and sports. As a society, we also look at proficiency in driving before issuing driver’s licenses and the ability to hold a job for steady income before issuing a mortgage. You will probably have thought of one or two more by the end of this article.

There are typically two ways you can benchmark a level of proficiency.

One is through a set standard based on historical averages and expectations. Workplaces do this all the time when considering product defect percentages, cost savings, and more. It is a way to ensure they are meeting customer expectations and to compare themselves against competitors. It is also how government agencies know if different rules and regulations are being met. State testing in schools also uses this to set reading level expectations and knowledge learned by different ages.

The other way is through direct, current comparison to other people doing the same thing. It ends up being more subjective. Sports are a prime example. The state championship winner for any event in any year is based against the players that year. Records serve as a small measure year over year, but no one can say definitely if the 2009 Super bowl winning team would beat the 2019 winning Super bowl team because the situation can not be created.

In this vein, you can also compare yourself against yourself. Compare pre-assessments with post-assessments taken after learning material. Think about race times from the start of the season and the end. In doing so, you are comparing your knowledge, skill, and expertise against a past, earlier version of yourself. For many things in this more subjective category of person-to-person, it is best to use yourself as the benchmark for comparison. These all provide a point at which to compare improvement and current understanding of information.

Conclusion- Praising Effort Or Proficiency- Which One Is Better For Your Parenting Goals

Therefore I hope you realize that praising effort and grading proficiency each have their place.

If you are having trouble determining which is appropriate for your situation, consider the following. What are you hoping to accomplish?

Are you working on building up a skill or fostering curiosity? Praising effort is best used during the learning process. When there is no need to compare against anyone or anything, praise the time and the effort put into the activity.

Are you trying to gauge the extent of one’s familiarity with something? Grade proficiency when you are looking to measure one’s level of understanding, knowledge, and execution of material they have learned.

Now when you hear the arguments for praising effort versus proficiency, you will know they both belong in the world. It is just a matter of context and what you are looking to accomplish!

Looking For More on Praising Effort Or Proficiency?

Kelly’s mission to help moms and dads thrive in the early years of parenting continues. Her most recent project is the book “New Job: Dad” which was published on September 16, 2021. She tackles 17 situations fathers of babies and toddlers deal with along with ways to manage them. Incorporating personal examples from her year with three children under age three, Kelly offers light-hearted and practical information dads can adopt. Knowing dad’s reading time is minimal, “New Job: Dad” is less than 100 pages – a feature appreciated by all the dads who reviewed her book before publication. Kelly Mager is also the author of “15 Ways For New Moms To Manage Stress & Stay Sane”, a book being praised as the perfect baby shower gift.

Also read:

Support For New Moms On Their Parenthood Journey By Kelly Mager

Screen Time Impact on Kids and How to avoid it

Best Podcast To Enhance The Imagination Of Kids

12 ways to Overcome Depression in Children during COVID19