The Danish Way Of Parenting : "Don't Appreciate The Output"

I came across this post on my facebook timeline, that really struck a chord with me. Something which we all ignore as parents. The post is an interesting take on parenting, a take on how changing mindset could achieve such great results.

Post:

"Have been reading a book lately called The Danish Way of Parenting (thanks for suggesting it Nithya Shanti). Denmark has been consistently the 1st ranked Happiness Index nation since the survey was instituted. How that lineage has flourished has been a matter of much research.

One interesting insight: Danish parents don't praise or appreciate you for your talent or output. They appreciate you for your efforts and approach. In other words, the process and thinking. According to research, the primary goal is to build self esteem and not self confidence.

Praising a child's intelligence makes them confident but also creates a 'fixed mindset'. The child actually becomes wary of effort because the thinking that develops is, "If I have to make so much effort, I can't be smart". And the other reason they stop making the effort is because a failure directly hits on their self confidence. 

Praising the efforts, process and questioning in curiosity and wonder around their thinking process creates a 'growth mindset' where the child is happy to make the effort, knows that as the only way and takes failure as a natural pathway to success.
 

It sounds simple but I clearly see many of us believing that we must appreciate the child continuously and give them positive strokes. We often end up praising tiny, insignificant things and often praise the 'who' rather than the what. More so because we have less time for our child and do an overdose because of our guilt and because many self help books say so. 


I truly found this breakthrough in conscious parenting. Hope you can make good use of it."

Originally shared by Vineet Taneja on Facebook