Praise

I have read a lot on how to praise children. Effective versus ineffective praise. (Go to Haim Ginnot's work to see more. Either Parent and Child or Teacher and Child.)
But I just read something today that is interesting.
I am reading a book called How We Decide by Lehrer and he mentioned some research by Dweck. (Who also wrote a book that I haven't read yet about this research being referred to here.)
Anyway when some students sat down to complete a puzzle, at the end, they were praised, some with a sentence referring to how smart they must be at these types of things because they did well, and the other half with a reference to how much effort they put into the puzzle. Dweck thought there would not be a lot of different in the students response to that difference but there was! Students who were told they had a good ability in puzzles, later picked among two choices the puzzle they were told was easier, like the one they completed before instead of a puzzle that was described to be harder. Those whose effort was praised chose the harder puzzle. Also, given a choise to either look at puzzles already completed by others, that were not as good as the job they did or a better job than they did, the students whose effort was praised chose to look at the puzzles that were better. They wanted to see where their mistakes were so that they improved. Students whose inate ability was praised wanted to see the puzzles of students who did worse than they did so that they could continue to feel smart. It is crazy how powerful one little sentence can be.
This is interesting because people who are experts are people who analyze their mistakes and try to learn from them, think of how they could have done better.
We do our kids a misservice by implying to them that there are some subjects that people are just good or bad at and there is not much that can be done about it. I saw this a lot as a teacher. Kids would say to me, "Well my mom didn't do good in math either, so she said I might not do good either" or parents would tell me in conferences that they expected their kids would have a hard time in math because you are either born good at it or you are not. It is almost as if these parents have given their kids a pass at not putting any effort into math because they might not be any good at it anyway.
I think I might be that way about writing. I don't want to edit, I don't want to put a lot of work into it. I would like to be naturally good at it and have that manifested to me by my great success as a writer. Hopefully I am reading enough to change that notion. I am at least writing every day, which is a good step.
I read an article about Nora Roberts. She started writing when one of her kids was 3 and the other was 6 and they were homebound because of a big storm outside. She has had no formal education in writing, no college degree in English (like me) but just started. She said her first book was terrible (encouraging). Now her theory on writing is essentially Ass in the Chair. She has a daily schedule and writes 6-8 hours a day. She writes 5 books a year!!
So, now as soon as I get inspired by something I am going to sit right down and write in my blog. Hopefully a good start.