Should You Praise a Child for Being Smart or for What They Did Well?

A child talks a lot and joins in conversations, so the family calls them smart. But what is that praise recognizing: an inborn quality, or something the child has just done?

In her July 3 livestream, Ququ connected her family’s praise of a child with a memory from her own childhood. She recalled a teacher describing her as smart while also pointing out that she was not working hard enough. Years later, what she remembered most was feeling pleased with herself for being clever, rather than becoming more willing to put in the work.

That memory made her pay closer attention to what praise actually points to. Beyond expressing affection, can it tell a child exactly what you noticed them doing well?

An adult’s encouragement may not be what a child remembers

Ququ said that family members often called the child smart because the child was talkative. She also noted that no assessment had established whether this reflected high intelligence.

An adult notices that a child is talkative, then turns that observation into a general judgment of ability. If the same word is used when the child does something new, what was good about that particular action may go unmentioned.

Her childhood recollection illustrates a similar distinction. The teacher offered both recognition and a reminder to work harder, yet she remembered the recognition and took pride in it. This is her reflection on a personal experience. It does not establish that every child would respond in the same way, or that the family’s praise has already changed this child’s behavior.

It invites adults to listen again: is what you meant to communicate the same as what the other person remembered?

Let praise respond to something that actually happened

In this discussion, Ququ suggested relying less on repeated praise of inborn attributes and focusing instead on specific things achieved through effort. Her examples included playing a ball game well, hitting accurately, and something a child had just learned.

Each example points to an action or performance. The child has a chance to hear more than a general positive judgment: they can understand which part of what they did was recognized.

MELODY draws a practical reminder from this distinction: before giving praise, identify what you actually observed. If a movement was more accurate, describe that movement. If you noticed a particular attempt, describe it. There is no need to invent effort you did not see just to offer encouragement.

Nor does every compliment need to be mechanically replaced with the word effort. That word alone may still leave the child unsure of what you are recognizing. Specific feedback depends on whether it refers to a detail that genuinely occurred.

Specific praise does not have to become another demand

A response can be brief and concern only the action, attempt, or result that just happened. Recognizing it does not need to turn immediately into a requirement to do even better next time.

This is MELODY’s further interpretation of specific feedback: let praise first respond to what is in front of you, and notice whether you are turning one performance into a judgment of the whole person.

External research also supports caution when distinguishing forms of praise from developmental outcomes. In a 2013 study, Gunderson and colleagues found a predictive association between early process praise and children’s later motivational frameworks. They did not find a corresponding association between early person praise and later fixed-ability frameworks. These findings do not establish that praising intelligence necessarily makes a child less willing to work, and they cannot verify Ququ’s childhood experience or this child’s developmental outcomes. Research source

You can try making feedback more specific without expecting a single sentence to determine a child’s intelligence, academic performance, or personality.

Praising a child can also mean learning to notice them

Later in the discussion, Ququ suggested seeing the process of educating a child as an opportunity to learn again herself. When a child does something well, an adult can also observe and learn, rather than always occupying the role of evaluator.

The question for adults is therefore not only which word to use, but whether they have paid attention to what happened. When the description goes beyond what you actually saw, return to the detail.

Your most recent instance of praise is a place to start: what did the child do? How did you respond? Could that response tell them which part you appreciated?

If you would like to explore this further with Ask Melody, start with that interaction: what you observed and what you hoped the child would understand. Reviewing a parent’s wording does not require first making a judgment about the child’s ability.