Criticizing Children

The Right Way of Praising and Criticizing Our Children

I believe that a lot of people, including me, sooner or later will get the most challenging job ever, which is raising a child. Most of them, especially mothers, are afraid to become a parent. I mentioned mother is because a mother usually spending more time with their children compare to a father, so mother has a bigger influence for children. There are a lot of reason for them to be afraid, because we live in such a cruel and an unfair world are few of them. One big mistake could hurt them. One big mistake could make them worse. After read the book of Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. I know that children are sensitive, they would be able to sense anything since they were really young.

Most children don 't like being criticize. Critics are not a solution for any problem, it just makes it worse. Criticizing means to tell someone or something negative things without having any solution. Instead of criticizing children, it is better to guide them. People have different kind of limit and ability, some people good at sports, some good at music, and some good at biology, etc. We need to know our children 's limit and ability. Don 't push them to hard especially to something that they don 't like, always support what they do like. We still can give criticism, but it must be constructive criticism. "Constructive means helping the child to fix something, build better product, or do a better job. (Mindset 182) I remember my old high school classmate told me about his parents, his parents always criticized in anything he did, for example: "This is an easy problem, why you still got it wrong?" or "You are so stupid!" Most of his grades was C and even when he got B+ in one of his subjects, his parents still told him "Why only B+?" My friend was really upset, it was like anything he did was a mistake. My friend was becoming lazy and lazier in school, because he thought that his efforts are useless. He could have done much better in school if his parents didn 't criticizing him like that. His parents should say something like "Son, would you let me know which problem is hard so I can teach you the easiest way to do it?" or "I know this problem is hard, but sometimes

My friend and I are struggling to change our mindset, from fixed mindset to growth mindset. We don’t blame our parents for that, and we can’t, because we also learn at school and at our community, which are really out of our parents’ control. Instead, we are thankful to becoming what we are and knowing that we are able to change our mindset now. I know change is hard, but it is possible and worth it. I like the quote from Mindset book, “Change can be tough, but I’ve never heard anyone say it wasn’t worth it.” (Mindset 246) It is become the biggest challenge in our life, because if we want to change our mindset, then we need to change it now while we are young, otherwise it would be too late. Growth mindset not only helpful in our school life, it also helpful in our relationship, family, business, and all aspects of