Encouraging children to see personal attributes as malleable (work hard to be smarter, work on personal weak areas to improve them, etc) seems like a good thing to do.
The key finding was the more parents tended to praise their pre-school age children for effort (known as process praise, as in "good job"), the more likely it was that those children had a "incremental attitude" towards intelligence and morality when they were aged seven to eight. This mindset was revealed by their seeing intelligence and moral attributes as malleable. For example, such children tended to agree that people can get smarter if they try harder, and disagree with the idea that a naughty child with always be naughty.
I've always tried to use "great work"-style of encouragement with my daughter, but, for some reason, its hard! Â "You're so smart" type of encouragement seems to just slip out without thinking. Â I think I usually catch myself and amend my comment to include some sort of "great job"-style of encouragement.
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Seven-year-olds’ beliefs about ability are associated with the way they were praised as toddlers
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+Sara Voye