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Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

227 points by FuNe 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
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mnw21cam 9y ago
Praise them for trying hard instead, or (as the article says) for doing very well this time.
rkowalick 9y ago
I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important. As a child, I was told I was smart and basically tried to coast as much as possible. I still have a lot of trouble learning how to do something new, especially because I have kind of internalized that I'm good at everything.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  Similar experience, but I blame it on my own never learning how to learn effectively (as it was too easy through high school). I doubt it was the wording of the praise, but rather the lack of my own effort and application in learning things that were hard for other students.
- Overtonwindow 9y ago
  I was the opposite. Good results were rare so a lot of focus was on praising my effort. That meant I put in enough effort to coast, having low confidence in my results. It's hard for me to learn new things now as well.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Basically, no matter what we do, our kids are screwed either way :/.
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
      Point number 3 on my list of "why I'm never having kids". It really is a spin of the wheel as to where they'll land in life.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        What're the first two, if I may ask out of curiosity?
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    I think the most effective approach is somewhere in the middle -- you have to praise successful efforts. The more crucial part is organizing the curriculum so that every student has enough opportunities to "win" that they maintain confidence, but "lose" often enough that they don't become complacent. That's hard enough to do in a 1:1 setting, let alone a 30:1 classroom. I think there's some benefit to 1:1 tutoring/individual enrichment any time a student isn't smack dab in the middle of the bell curve.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    I've take a slightly different approach. When my kid has success, I praise the effort put in to get there. This doesn't praise the kid directly (leading to inflated beliefs about how great they are) and it doesn't praise effort for it's own sake. It praises the kids ability to put in effort to get the results they want. I'm not saying it's right, or better, but like some of the other commenters here I've got my own issues in this area and it's my attempt to handle the next generation a little better. BTW to a lesser extent I apply this to myself now too.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  A bit of both is probably good. For example: in Belgium, in recent years a lot of kids are (often) given points for effort so they can pass a certain grade. More and more the case. I talked to a teacher friend about this, and while he thinks its great, I think it's ridiculous. Do we want a society of people who put in some effort yet achieve nothing? Now, not that I think the educational system shouldn't be flexible and account for the fact that not everyone has the same level of intelligence or ability (everyone is different + has different talents, which is great!), but you can end up with some weird situations. Add to that the fact that the people who become teachers are generally of quite low quality (very few bright minds end up teaching) and you can easily see the quality of education declining. While grades are to be looked at on a case by case basis (and I'm aware people don't often find their passions and talents until later in life), I don't believe that you should get (too much) points for effort. You don't get points in life for effort either.
  - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
    That's insane. When I "make an effort" to pay a parking ticket on time and I don't, nobody gives me a shiny sticker star - I have to pay double instead. EDIT: People, I said nothing about children paying parking tickets or about poor people. My comment is an example of a self-inflicted problem that is exacerbated by self-inflicted delay, to which the consequences must be borne by the individual as is the nature of life - NOT a dissertation on poverty. These distractions do little to serve the debate.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      I got a parking ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street during plow season (even days one side, odd the other). I had habitually moved my car on the 31st-1st transition. The judge or magistrate reduced the fine by the maximum amount they could when I explained that I had made a simple error while trying to follow the parking rule.
      - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
        You proactively took measures to address the ticket in a timely fashion, which is not at all what my comment meant to address. Good on you, though.
- Pigo 9y ago
  That's extremely self-aware, and honest of you to be able to admit.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  It is important to balance both but the single most important one is allowing kids to fail, and then teaching them how to improve on that or learn from that experience. The journey and the reward on completion are important, but the most important is teaching them improvement to prevent coasting. In life, success comes from many integration and market tests, tests can be failed but once you pass you have a solid release iteration and improvement, continuously build on that by comparing yourself to yourself via diffs at checkpoints.
- inZGBl 9y ago
  I think that's probably more personality than anything else. I was always told I was smart and was never motivated. Perfect example: I took the ACT only once because I scored a 30 and it wasn't worth it for me to try to improve that score. Meanwhile, all of my honors & AP class friends took it several times scoring 33s, 34s, & 35s. This was a direct result of my "intelligence complex" and yet I have no trouble learning new things. I actually get extremely bored if I'm not digging in depth into new subjects every 6-9 months. Speaks to why I have several unfinished websites because I wanted to learn a new framework, unused golf clubs, tons of cooking utensils but no food, etc. I love to learn, I just never learned how to be motivated or competitive or persistent.
  - subway 9y ago
    I also struggle in this manner. If I don't grok something, I'm intensely motivated to work on/with it until I do. If I'm not careful though, that motivation completely disappears the moment I achieve a sense of an understanding of the topic.
  - justherefortart 9y ago
    Being disciplined is what you never learned. It's hard to teach it to yourself (I'm the same way, so I don't mean it as a slight).
  - klnldknf 9y ago
    It's probably because the first 80% is really easy to learn so you get all the gratification of "being smart", without ever having to do anything difficult.
    - _exnk 9y ago
      It's actually because I tend to be very action-oriented so at some point I get fed up with all of the planning and have to dive in and do something. Then, at a certain point down the road, I realize that the resource requirements (typically time or money) to get to where I want to be are too high so I drop it. I actually get more frustration than gratification out of it.
  - 9y ago
- always_good 9y ago
  I see people say this on HN a lot. And even people saying they have the same behavior but with the opposite impetus, like one of my comment's siblings. I think it's more likely that praise had little to do with your behavior, and you would've been the same regardless. I think it's tempting to backsplain our behavior with things we happen to remember from our past. For example, pretty much everyone struggles with their own attention span and learning new things.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  I think it all depends on the person. Both my wife and I were labelled as "gifted". My wife scored 145 twice on the IQ test, so she's much smarter than me. We were both praised as smart throughout our childhood, but we were also both very competitive. We never had any problems with lacking motivation and working hard. Losing never discouraged us, because winning was always much more motivating. I was never tempted to cheat, mainly because I always felt that if I lost, I deserved the loss. To me, there's no sense in being competitive if you're going to fabricate your wins, but that's a moral system I developed on my own very young. My kids are a bit different. They're definitely much smarter than their peers, but I often see them giving up when they lose, when we plays games and such. I definitely stress to them the importance of never giving up, and the value of effort over natural skills and always trying hard. I tell them that just because they're smart doesn't mean that they will always win, and that people who work hard will always beat the lazy smart person. Also, never fear losing because winners always lose more because they're always competing, but it's the big wins that matter more than small losses. I hope they take this message to heart, because I have friends who fear failure and it's debilitating to them. Even the idea of applying for a new job is too much because they can't handle rejection, which I find extremely sad.
- eevilspock 9y ago
  Praising results regardless of effort is similar to praising innate ability. So it's in line with the gist of the article. In any case I’m totally unsurprised by this. Praising innate ability represents an entirely different value system from praising effort.
- Splines 9y ago
  > I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important. And yet, our work is completely the opposite. Your boss doesn't care how much effort it took you to do that thing, only that it got done. Parents inevitably take this approach at home as well. An A is an A is an A. Good marks are what we look for, and are a mental shortcut to know if your child is doing their work at school. But we see this can backfire, as children learn that getting all the answers right on a test are all that matters. Maybe instead our school system needs to instead evaluate relative performance, not absolute performance. A grade should say "Sally improved by 50% this term", and parents can praise that result. The tests that a child takes should adjust to take into account that child's proficiency, to ensure that child is always being challenged. Aside: Getting all the answers right on a test is also a poor signal - you're essentially clipping the measurement of a child's performance. Kids should be used to failure, and learning how to take on new challenges. Why not give a test where the expected mark is 50%?
  - darkengine 9y ago
    Measuring improvement is even easier to cheat. One merely has to purposefully give wrong answers in the early parts of the class, and then answer more earnestly in the latter half of the class.
    - Splines 9y ago
      You'd need to have continuous tracking of performance across grades. Low performance at the beginning of a school year would translate to a drop in progress compared to the end of the previous year. You could still game it by aiming for the average, but really the average is the expectation. And in a world where subject matter difficulty can scale with a child irrespective of the skill level of peers their age, getting an average result on a test is ok.
  - CptJamesCook 9y ago
    Boss here. I care a lot about how hard an employee is working.
- clairity 9y ago
  i disagree with this dichotomy. you shouldn't overpraise or underpraise, and you shouldn't simply prefer effort or results. when i coach kids in basketball, i like to praise "effectiveness", which is a combination of stamina (staying with a task, both physically and mentally) and decision-making (doing the best thing in the moment given your capabilities). these notions go beyond simple effort and results by weaving in underlying positive behaviors and sets the child up to succeed at their level, while also stretching them so they're never too complacent about their current accomplishments. it's a super-tricky balancing act, and i get it wrong all the time, but it's rewarding when you see a child grow without them even realizing what's going on.
- hdctambien 9y ago
  The idea is that if you are told "you got the answer, you must be smart", then your success and failure is innate to who you are. You don't have agency over it. If you are told "you got the answer, you must have worked hard", then you get to own your success and you learn that if you work hard, you can earn success.
graphitezepp 9y ago
Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. All makes sense to me though, I felt severe pressure for fitting into what I perceived as my 'role' growing up, and constantly being called smart created massive pressure to continue to be viewed that way.
- phkahler 9y ago
  >> Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. Umm. Stop trying to place blame on others or yourself. Nothing good can come from that. Results stem from effort, nothing more or less. Learning comes from trying, both success and failure. Understand where you went wrong and aim to do better in the future. When you fail again, rinse and repeat all of the above. And remember none of this is easy, you're trying to overcome deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    Apologies that was an attempt at humor.
    - phkahler 9y ago
      Dammit!! ;-)
dpflan 9y ago
Being praised for being smart begets cheating because of the pressure to continue to be perceived as smart ("The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t."). The behavior praise stressses the past while the ability praises uphold an idea of permanent ability; perhaps the phrasing of the praise is significant too ("'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'") because the behavior praise adds a reference to the action; while, the ability praise does not yet implies so.
- deleted 9y ago
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adamwong246 9y ago
Definitely don't tell your kids that they are "talented". I took piano lessons for 10 years and hated every moment of it, because I was "talented."
- toast0 9y ago
  "you have so much potential" bleh.
- teddyh 9y ago
  http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/talent http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/talent
Pulcinella 9y ago
This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Students who think they are "one of the dumb kids" do much worse than similar students who do not think that. These students will randomly guess the answer to a multiple choice[1] question if they don't instantly know the answer, even if the answer to the question was basically given in another question on the test. Part of helping this kind of student is also praising them for effort rather than "smartness" and teaching them how to be good test takers (e.g. How to use the test against itself, how to "guess" wisely, etc). [1] Debate on the pedagogical value of multiple choice tests is left as an exercise to the reader.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  This is absolutely my experience -- even a few positive reinforcements ("Wow, that was a super clever idea! I wouldn't have thought of solving the problem that way!") can change students' mindset, at least in a particular class/subject. It's amazing how few students are actually as bad as they appear to be on first pass. I basically go into every student/teacher interaction assuming the kid is above average, and I'm very rarely disappointed. That's because "average" is often pulled way down by issues surrounding self-image and study behavior, both of which have no bearing on raw ability. Basically, "confidence + hard work" is usually enough to take a kid from below average to slightly above average.
- richmarr 9y ago
  > This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Carol Dweck argues in her book (and the research behind it) that you're describing different symptoms of the same problem, rather than an inverse. The problem being; a mindset that believes a normal person's ability at a task (at least at a high school level) is governed by fixed traits rather than something that can be changed. - People who consider themselves inherently unskilled at a task are more likely to not bother. - People who consider themselves inherently skilled at a task are likely to fear failure because it damages their self worth. - People who focus on growth/learning/effort are less afraid of failure, attempt harder problems and are more resilient to setbacks These ideas may seem trite these days but the book was published in 2006 so maybe less so then.
- 9y ago
b3lvedere 9y ago
A couple of weeks ago someone introduced me to the idea not only asking your kids if everything is ok, but also ask what went wrong or failed. At first i was a little afraid asking my kids those kind of things, but until now their reaction has been quite positive.
- tertius 9y ago
  Good idea. Source?
  - b3lvedere 9y ago
    The source is a bit complex. :) I listen to this daily podcast called The Morning Stream ( http://frogpants.com/tms/ http://frogpants.com/tms/ ). On thursdays they got a segment called Theraphy Thursdays ( https://therapythursdays.com/about/ https://therapythursdays.com/about/). It came up a few weeks ago in this segment.
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meshy 9y ago
This concept from Carol Dweck's research is core to Allison Kaptur's keynote at the New Zealand Python User Group in 2015 [0]. It's a good talk regarding the importance of having a growth mindset. If you prefer a written version, it's available on Allison Kaptur's website[1]. Previous discussion [2]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo [1]: http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/ http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strate... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669
- gadders 9y ago
  I think it's a helpful idea, but have her results been replicated ever?
franciscop 9y ago
I was watching a coming of age Japanese movie yesterday (Flying Colors) and exactly this was said there. I didn't search it at the time, but I am glad to read this now and to have it answered. As now I am teaching people I will strongly take it into consideration when praising, however I wonder how much it differs from adults and kids.
tpeo 9y ago
Reminds me of chapters eighteen and nineteen of the Tao Te Ching. Specially the third and fourth lines of chapter eighteen: "When wisdom and intelligence are born,/ The great pretense begins." But I'm not entirely sure if it's a permissible interpretation of the text.
tabeth 9y ago
I don't think it's worth praising effort nor results. The real thing that should be praised imo is measurable improvement.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Seems sensible to me. Improvement is the proverbial "learning to learn" lesson. It's also motivating and being motivated by improvement is a great mental habit. This is what testing should be focused on, IMO. Creating some visibility for the learner on long and short term progress, and a "reward" for improvement. The canonical system (IMO) for this is Kano Jigoro's judo belt system and its descendants. Works great for kids. Seems like we could do it for math or reading too.
- icebraining 9y ago
  What does that mean in practice, though? Take learning: is simply having learned more an improvement? Then almost any kid qualifies. Is it learning better/faster than before? Then what happens when the kid reaches a very high level and eventually plateaus? Do you stop praising them despite being one of the best?
  - tabeth 9y ago
    That's more of a pedagogical question than one with a concrete answer. To your last point: I don't think being the best is something that merits praise, necessarily. A 10000% improvement, whatever that means to you, is probably more "impressive" than being the best, but only seeing fractional gains.
- tertius 9y ago
  For children, what makes makes effort into measurable improvement is guidance/teaching.
  - rimliu 9y ago
    No amount of teaching will lead to improvement if there is no learning.
robg 9y ago
The more we look at "smart" the more we find it's akin to "athletic", might be broadly true, but in practice doesn't mean much without hard work and discipline. Praise the effort.
rbanffy 9y ago
I wonder if this is why so many great hackers are keen on bending rules.
oldsklgdfth 9y ago
The most dangerous thing you can do for someone is set their expectations. I think this is true for adults as well. Expectations add more pressure to meet a curtain performance that otherwise wouldn't be there. That along with a lack of solid stress coping mechanisms leads people to bend the rules.
whistlerbrk 9y ago
A major rule in parenting is to praise effort and hard work which strengthens the 'internal locus of control' as opposed to seeing some positive action and then commenting on how smart they are. People view 'smarts' as something binary, you are or you aren't and therefore you are strengthening the external locus of control. Eventually when smarts aren't enough, and additional progress requires grit, those who were praised for their determination will excel, because they know it is within them. Others who were told they were smart will hate themselves for not being as smart as they thought. So goes the theory.
- moxious 9y ago
  There are no widely accepted rules in parenting, because the outcomes people are trying to create in their kids are so wildly different. Raising kids is like cooking a dish over a decade or more with no recipe. Imagine one set of parents making brownies, and another trying to make Chicken Kiev. How much chocolate should you use?
  - whistlerbrk 9y ago
    as I said, '... So goes the theory.' But as far as widely accepted rules in parenting, pretty much any baby book will mention this. I don't think anyone is trying to achieve an outcome where their child feels inadequate. The point is well meaning parents can unintentionally do harm with their words. So I don't know where you are going with your analogy.
mattlondon 9y ago
Anecdote: I had always been told I was intelligent and clever. When it came to the exams everyone takes as a 15/16 year old in the UK I distinctly remember thinking to myself something like: "everyone has to be able to pass these exams, so I should be able to pass easily without much effort since I am one of the clever kids". I didn't cheat, but my line of thought led me to a fairly disappointing set of results (as you'd expect). Even now I think of myself as "smarter than the average bear", but I have the feeling that people were just telling me that because they were my parent/grand parent/friendly neighbor/aunt etc and now it is SET IN STONE IN MY BRAIN after years of reinforcement as a child. What really confuses me though, is how can I think I am smarter than average, yet suffer from near constant impostor-syndrome? :-)
- agumonkey 9y ago
  because both are self induced judgements ? some times you will have confidence (smart) and sometimes not (impostor). The desire for adults to see genius children is detrimental I believe. I too grew up with lots of praise although it wasn't family only. It didn't help me much. Especially since I was kept in normal schools at normal pace, so now I'm bored and spoiled. College slapped 90% of that out of me. I still feel like a genius occasionally and although feel like a fraud most of the time. to add some value to the topic of education, what people call intelligence in children is often an ease for some abstraction and systematic thinking. While most kids are scattered and down to earth. But there will be subjects or times when even your(my) nice brain will fail to appreciate some idea or detail. Especially outside of your natural tastes.
- computereye 9y ago
  Impostor syndrome is not incompatible with being smart. Quite the contrary. It could be an extension of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The more you know and understand something, the more you can judge your performance and notice your failures, thus making you feel like an impostor.
- Taylor_OD 9y ago
  Anecdotal as well: It's all relative. I was homeschooled for much of my childhood and first went to a public school my Junior year of high school. I didnt think of myself as exceptionally smart - average at best. I was in a English class one day half way through the year when the teacher was putting us into group. A girl he paired me up with said, "Yay he's smart!" and that was the first time I ever thought I was a "smart" kid. That was a town in Vermont where the public education system was not very good. Later when I went to college I realized I was just about average at most things, a bit above average at some, and significantly below average at many things (due to poor homeschooling). As an adult I realize that I'm more intelligent than the average joe but when I'm in a room of professors or even people who have a passion for studying and learning I can tell I'm simply not at the same level as them.
computereye 9y ago
Confidence from being told you're smart might be important for child development and performance in school. Cheating and dishonesty are morally bad but most of the times this behavior leads to good outcome (but very bad sometimes). Looking at it another way, it's called hacking/gaming the system/bending the rules. The results of the study show that kids are more likely to cheat, but they don't show it is bad for a successful and happy life.
Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
kids that cheat are more likely to be praised for being smart.
S_A_P 9y ago
May be an unpopular take on this, but maybe something to think about. There are many things in school that amount to being "busy work" or pointless excercises. Is it possible that intellegent kids see through the bs and want to short cut what they perceive to be a waste of their time? Now the article is light on details about the kinds of cheating that occurs, so I dont know that fully explains it. I could see receiving praise and validation akin to a drug and wanting to continue receiving that.
- usrusr 9y ago
  What is the difference between busywork and training exercise? Often there is some kind of strawman goal to make the training exercise more interesting, but those who see through the strawman might be better off with a honest "you need to go through these stupid repeats because more interesting challenges later will be overwhelming of you can't do these in your sleep". Rocky Balboa prepares for the showdown at the end of the movie with a series of boring morning runs, not with a series of exciting bar fights. Similar patterns apply to writing, music and even maths.
danielvf 9y ago
Perhaps there's a third way. My parents didn't praise us so much for our efforts, nor for "achievements", but they were really excited about the things and projects we were doing. It was like the whole universe was full of exciting things to be discovered and mastered. For example, if we were going down a river in a canoe, my dad wasn't talking about how much work we kids were doing, or how skilled we were. He was talking about the amazing eagles, herons, hawks, and water moccasins we were seeing, and how to best shoot the rapids, and what the difference wave shapes meant about the rocks underneath. We kids didn't learn and work at canoeing because we would be praised if we did well. We wanted to explore and master the river! I've found in teaching that moving the focus off the student and onto whatever amazing thing we are learning about works really well - both with kids and adults.
- ballenf 9y ago
  Not all hard work has the immediate payoff of your example. There are plateaus in early learning where the payoff is impossible to see and one most proceed on almost blind faith that the task is worthwhile. Or because someone else is making you do it. Praise from a parent, mentor or teacher regarding the effort put forth in those moments can prevent the learner from giving up. But I do agree that kids (or even adults sometimes) need help recognizing the mind-blowing wonder of nature and natural phenomenon around them. I like to take the approach of asking my kids why they think animals are doing what they're doing or why the water is rough in some spots but not others, etc. They get more praise for a more thoughtful or logical answers (effort) without regard for accuracy (outcome).
AceyMan 9y ago
Having read the current child psych lit extensively, I can provide a boot-camp education on raising young'uns in one sentence: "Your children don't want to be praised; they want to be noticed." 'Dad/mom look at me / watch me do this / see what I did in class', etc, etc. all signify this — praise isn't what their psyche thirsts for, merely plain old attention. Done earnestly, giving attention takes time, and so has a 'cost' in adult's life that may be greater than you'd assume — see, the subtext of the tune "Cat's Cradle" — but the payoff is immeasurable. /George's Dad
- buxtehude 9y ago
  Thank you for sharing this - I just read the "Cat's Cradle" lyrics - a song I had heard all my life but never really stopped to think about. As a father of a 3 year old, I'm very happy to say I spend regular daily quality time with my son and frankly it's the best thing ever in my entire life. If you have any favorite links from early child psych lit - please share.
  - AceyMan 9y ago
    Off the top of my head, "Unconditional Parenting" by Alfie Kohn is a seminal text in the field. "Parenting From the Inside Out" by Daniel Siegel & Mary Hartzell is wonderful as well.
    - NoIKnow 9y ago
      Unconditional parenting hurts self-esteem, encourages immaturity and ill prepares children for life in the adult world. Alfie Kohn should retitle that book "How to Raise a Self-Centered A-Hole". Most things in life have strings attached - yep, love is no different. Try treating someone who loves you with a lack of regard, an emotionally healthy person will draw a line. Set boundaries, show disapproval or risk raising a child with an inability to emotionally regulate when things don't go their way as they so often do in life. Unconditional love should only apply to achievement so the child will not fear that you will not love them if they fail to meet academic expectations. Instill essential qualities, such as hard work, discipline, patience, persistence, and perseverance then you give a child the tools to achieve their goals.
Klockan 9y ago
This surprises me since I wouldn't have guessed that 3 year olds know what "smart" means not to mention knowing that being smart is unrelated to effort. Could this effect actually be due to something else than growth vs innate mindset? My guess is that the teachers experience different emotions depending on word usage and that kids are affected by those emotions. Previously I believed in these studies but this result makes me question the others as well since they could suffer from the same problem.
lazyant 9y ago
"the curse of the gifted" is a thing
1337biz 9y ago
I don't like the idea that cheating is always a bad attribute. If a kid is able to play a game for its advantage and bend the rules, I respect that more than being able to follow the rules without thinking about how to get ahead.
- ng12 9y ago
  Are you a proponent of larceny for the same reasons? Cheating is easy, not getting caught is harder. I'm failing to see how being a good cheater is admirable.
  - 1337biz 9y ago
    But not getting caught means you have gained the understanding when a situation is worth taking the risk. And this is something that you learn from experience and an important skill in life. It is not about cheating or the level therof. Only to understand situations where rules are in place and getting a feeling for when to follow them and when to break them. I think this is something very important to learn.
mlman 9y ago
I would lik

227 points by FuNe 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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mnw21cam 9y ago

Praise them for trying hard instead, or (as the article says) for doing very well this time.

rkowalick 9y ago

I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important. As a child, I was told I was smart and basically tried to coast as much as possible. I still have a lot of trouble learning how to do something new, especially because I have kind of internalized that I'm good at everything.

sokoloff 9y ago
Similar experience, but I blame it on my own never learning how to learn effectively (as it was too easy through high school). I doubt it was the wording of the praise, but rather the lack of my own effort and application in learning things that were hard for other students.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
I was the opposite. Good results were rare so a lot of focus was on praising my effort. That meant I put in enough effort to coast, having low confidence in my results. It's hard for me to learn new things now as well.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Basically, no matter what we do, our kids are screwed either way :/.
  - Overtonwindow 9y ago
    Point number 3 on my list of "why I'm never having kids". It really is a spin of the wheel as to where they'll land in life.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      What're the first two, if I may ask out of curiosity?
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  I think the most effective approach is somewhere in the middle -- you have to praise successful efforts. The more crucial part is organizing the curriculum so that every student has enough opportunities to "win" that they maintain confidence, but "lose" often enough that they don't become complacent. That's hard enough to do in a 1:1 setting, let alone a 30:1 classroom. I think there's some benefit to 1:1 tutoring/individual enrichment any time a student isn't smack dab in the middle of the bell curve.
- phkahler 9y ago
  I've take a slightly different approach. When my kid has success, I praise the effort put in to get there. This doesn't praise the kid directly (leading to inflated beliefs about how great they are) and it doesn't praise effort for it's own sake. It praises the kids ability to put in effort to get the results they want. I'm not saying it's right, or better, but like some of the other commenters here I've got my own issues in this area and it's my attempt to handle the next generation a little better. BTW to a lesser extent I apply this to myself now too.
charlesdm 9y ago
A bit of both is probably good. For example: in Belgium, in recent years a lot of kids are (often) given points for effort so they can pass a certain grade. More and more the case. I talked to a teacher friend about this, and while he thinks its great, I think it's ridiculous. Do we want a society of people who put in some effort yet achieve nothing? Now, not that I think the educational system shouldn't be flexible and account for the fact that not everyone has the same level of intelligence or ability (everyone is different + has different talents, which is great!), but you can end up with some weird situations. Add to that the fact that the people who become teachers are generally of quite low quality (very few bright minds end up teaching) and you can easily see the quality of education declining. While grades are to be looked at on a case by case basis (and I'm aware people don't often find their passions and talents until later in life), I don't believe that you should get (too much) points for effort. You don't get points in life for effort either.
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  That's insane. When I "make an effort" to pay a parking ticket on time and I don't, nobody gives me a shiny sticker star - I have to pay double instead. EDIT: People, I said nothing about children paying parking tickets or about poor people. My comment is an example of a self-inflicted problem that is exacerbated by self-inflicted delay, to which the consequences must be borne by the individual as is the nature of life - NOT a dissertation on poverty. These distractions do little to serve the debate.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    I got a parking ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street during plow season (even days one side, odd the other). I had habitually moved my car on the 31st-1st transition. The judge or magistrate reduced the fine by the maximum amount they could when I explained that I had made a simple error while trying to follow the parking rule.
    - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
      You proactively took measures to address the ticket in a timely fashion, which is not at all what my comment meant to address. Good on you, though.
Pigo 9y ago
That's extremely self-aware, and honest of you to be able to admit.
drawkbox 9y ago
It is important to balance both but the single most important one is allowing kids to fail, and then teaching them how to improve on that or learn from that experience. The journey and the reward on completion are important, but the most important is teaching them improvement to prevent coasting. In life, success comes from many integration and market tests, tests can be failed but once you pass you have a solid release iteration and improvement, continuously build on that by comparing yourself to yourself via diffs at checkpoints.
inZGBl 9y ago
I think that's probably more personality than anything else. I was always told I was smart and was never motivated. Perfect example: I took the ACT only once because I scored a 30 and it wasn't worth it for me to try to improve that score. Meanwhile, all of my honors & AP class friends took it several times scoring 33s, 34s, & 35s. This was a direct result of my "intelligence complex" and yet I have no trouble learning new things. I actually get extremely bored if I'm not digging in depth into new subjects every 6-9 months. Speaks to why I have several unfinished websites because I wanted to learn a new framework, unused golf clubs, tons of cooking utensils but no food, etc. I love to learn, I just never learned how to be motivated or competitive or persistent.
- subway 9y ago
  I also struggle in this manner. If I don't grok something, I'm intensely motivated to work on/with it until I do. If I'm not careful though, that motivation completely disappears the moment I achieve a sense of an understanding of the topic.
- justherefortart 9y ago
  Being disciplined is what you never learned. It's hard to teach it to yourself (I'm the same way, so I don't mean it as a slight).
- klnldknf 9y ago
  It's probably because the first 80% is really easy to learn so you get all the gratification of "being smart", without ever having to do anything difficult.
  - _exnk 9y ago
    It's actually because I tend to be very action-oriented so at some point I get fed up with all of the planning and have to dive in and do something. Then, at a certain point down the road, I realize that the resource requirements (typically time or money) to get to where I want to be are too high so I drop it. I actually get more frustration than gratification out of it.
- 9y ago
always_good 9y ago
I see people say this on HN a lot. And even people saying they have the same behavior but with the opposite impetus, like one of my comment's siblings. I think it's more likely that praise had little to do with your behavior, and you would've been the same regardless. I think it's tempting to backsplain our behavior with things we happen to remember from our past. For example, pretty much everyone struggles with their own attention span and learning new things.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
I think it all depends on the person. Both my wife and I were labelled as "gifted". My wife scored 145 twice on the IQ test, so she's much smarter than me. We were both praised as smart throughout our childhood, but we were also both very competitive. We never had any problems with lacking motivation and working hard. Losing never discouraged us, because winning was always much more motivating. I was never tempted to cheat, mainly because I always felt that if I lost, I deserved the loss. To me, there's no sense in being competitive if you're going to fabricate your wins, but that's a moral system I developed on my own very young. My kids are a bit different. They're definitely much smarter than their peers, but I often see them giving up when they lose, when we plays games and such. I definitely stress to them the importance of never giving up, and the value of effort over natural skills and always trying hard. I tell them that just because they're smart doesn't mean that they will always win, and that people who work hard will always beat the lazy smart person. Also, never fear losing because winners always lose more because they're always competing, but it's the big wins that matter more than small losses. I hope they take this message to heart, because I have friends who fear failure and it's debilitating to them. Even the idea of applying for a new job is too much because they can't handle rejection, which I find extremely sad.
eevilspock 9y ago
Praising results regardless of effort is similar to praising innate ability. So it's in line with the gist of the article. In any case I’m totally unsurprised by this. Praising innate ability represents an entirely different value system from praising effort.
Splines 9y ago
> I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important. And yet, our work is completely the opposite. Your boss doesn't care how much effort it took you to do that thing, only that it got done. Parents inevitably take this approach at home as well. An A is an A is an A. Good marks are what we look for, and are a mental shortcut to know if your child is doing their work at school. But we see this can backfire, as children learn that getting all the answers right on a test are all that matters. Maybe instead our school system needs to instead evaluate relative performance, not absolute performance. A grade should say "Sally improved by 50% this term", and parents can praise that result. The tests that a child takes should adjust to take into account that child's proficiency, to ensure that child is always being challenged. Aside: Getting all the answers right on a test is also a poor signal - you're essentially clipping the measurement of a child's performance. Kids should be used to failure, and learning how to take on new challenges. Why not give a test where the expected mark is 50%?
- darkengine 9y ago
  Measuring improvement is even easier to cheat. One merely has to purposefully give wrong answers in the early parts of the class, and then answer more earnestly in the latter half of the class.
  - Splines 9y ago
    You'd need to have continuous tracking of performance across grades. Low performance at the beginning of a school year would translate to a drop in progress compared to the end of the previous year. You could still game it by aiming for the average, but really the average is the expectation. And in a world where subject matter difficulty can scale with a child irrespective of the skill level of peers their age, getting an average result on a test is ok.
- CptJamesCook 9y ago
  Boss here. I care a lot about how hard an employee is working.
clairity 9y ago
i disagree with this dichotomy. you shouldn't overpraise or underpraise, and you shouldn't simply prefer effort or results. when i coach kids in basketball, i like to praise "effectiveness", which is a combination of stamina (staying with a task, both physically and mentally) and decision-making (doing the best thing in the moment given your capabilities). these notions go beyond simple effort and results by weaving in underlying positive behaviors and sets the child up to succeed at their level, while also stretching them so they're never too complacent about their current accomplishments. it's a super-tricky balancing act, and i get it wrong all the time, but it's rewarding when you see a child grow without them even realizing what's going on.
hdctambien 9y ago
The idea is that if you are told "you got the answer, you must be smart", then your success and failure is innate to who you are. You don't have agency over it. If you are told "you got the answer, you must have worked hard", then you get to own your success and you learn that if you work hard, you can earn success.

graphitezepp 9y ago

Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. All makes sense to me though, I felt severe pressure for fitting into what I perceived as my 'role' growing up, and constantly being called smart created massive pressure to continue to be viewed that way.

phkahler 9y ago
>> Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. Umm. Stop trying to place blame on others or yourself. Nothing good can come from that. Results stem from effort, nothing more or less. Learning comes from trying, both success and failure. Understand where you went wrong and aim to do better in the future. When you fail again, rinse and repeat all of the above. And remember none of this is easy, you're trying to overcome deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Apologies that was an attempt at humor.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    Dammit!! ;-)

dpflan 9y ago

Being praised for being smart begets cheating because of the pressure to continue to be perceived as smart ("The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t."). The behavior praise stressses the past while the ability praises uphold an idea of permanent ability; perhaps the phrasing of the praise is significant too ("'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'") because the behavior praise adds a reference to the action; while, the ability praise does not yet implies so.

deleted 9y ago
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adamwong246 9y ago

Definitely don't tell your kids that they are "talented". I took piano lessons for 10 years and hated every moment of it, because I was "talented."

toast0 9y ago
"you have so much potential" bleh.
teddyh 9y ago
http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/talent http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/talent

Pulcinella 9y ago

This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Students who think they are "one of the dumb kids" do much worse than similar students who do not think that. These students will randomly guess the answer to a multiple choice[1] question if they don't instantly know the answer, even if the answer to the question was basically given in another question on the test. Part of helping this kind of student is also praising them for effort rather than "smartness" and teaching them how to be good test takers (e.g. How to use the test against itself, how to "guess" wisely, etc). [1] Debate on the pedagogical value of multiple choice tests is left as an exercise to the reader.

throwawayjava 9y ago
This is absolutely my experience -- even a few positive reinforcements ("Wow, that was a super clever idea! I wouldn't have thought of solving the problem that way!") can change students' mindset, at least in a particular class/subject. It's amazing how few students are actually as bad as they appear to be on first pass. I basically go into every student/teacher interaction assuming the kid is above average, and I'm very rarely disappointed. That's because "average" is often pulled way down by issues surrounding self-image and study behavior, both of which have no bearing on raw ability. Basically, "confidence + hard work" is usually enough to take a kid from below average to slightly above average.
richmarr 9y ago
> This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Carol Dweck argues in her book (and the research behind it) that you're describing different symptoms of the same problem, rather than an inverse. The problem being; a mindset that believes a normal person's ability at a task (at least at a high school level) is governed by fixed traits rather than something that can be changed. - People who consider themselves inherently unskilled at a task are more likely to not bother. - People who consider themselves inherently skilled at a task are likely to fear failure because it damages their self worth. - People who focus on growth/learning/effort are less afraid of failure, attempt harder problems and are more resilient to setbacks These ideas may seem trite these days but the book was published in 2006 so maybe less so then.
9y ago

b3lvedere 9y ago

A couple of weeks ago someone introduced me to the idea not only asking your kids if everything is ok, but also ask what went wrong or failed. At first i was a little afraid asking my kids those kind of things, but until now their reaction has been quite positive.

tertius 9y ago
Good idea. Source?
- b3lvedere 9y ago
  The source is a bit complex. :) I listen to this daily podcast called The Morning Stream ( http://frogpants.com/tms/ http://frogpants.com/tms/ ). On thursdays they got a segment called Theraphy Thursdays ( https://therapythursdays.com/about/ https://therapythursdays.com/about/). It came up a few weeks ago in this segment.

deleted 9y ago

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meshy 9y ago

This concept from Carol Dweck's research is core to Allison Kaptur's keynote at the New Zealand Python User Group in 2015 [0]. It's a good talk regarding the importance of having a growth mindset. If you prefer a written version, it's available on Allison Kaptur's website[1]. Previous discussion [2]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcc6JEhDSpo [1]: http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/ http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strate... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370669

gadders 9y ago
I think it's a helpful idea, but have her results been replicated ever?

franciscop 9y ago

I was watching a coming of age Japanese movie yesterday (Flying Colors) and exactly this was said there. I didn't search it at the time, but I am glad to read this now and to have it answered. As now I am teaching people I will strongly take it into consideration when praising, however I wonder how much it differs from adults and kids.

tpeo 9y ago

Reminds me of chapters eighteen and nineteen of the Tao Te Ching. Specially the third and fourth lines of chapter eighteen: "When wisdom and intelligence are born,/ The great pretense begins." But I'm not entirely sure if it's a permissible interpretation of the text.

tabeth 9y ago

I don't think it's worth praising effort nor results. The real thing that should be praised imo is measurable improvement.

dalbasal 9y ago
Seems sensible to me. Improvement is the proverbial "learning to learn" lesson. It's also motivating and being motivated by improvement is a great mental habit. This is what testing should be focused on, IMO. Creating some visibility for the learner on long and short term progress, and a "reward" for improvement. The canonical system (IMO) for this is Kano Jigoro's judo belt system and its descendants. Works great for kids. Seems like we could do it for math or reading too.
icebraining 9y ago
What does that mean in practice, though? Take learning: is simply having learned more an improvement? Then almost any kid qualifies. Is it learning better/faster than before? Then what happens when the kid reaches a very high level and eventually plateaus? Do you stop praising them despite being one of the best?
- tabeth 9y ago
  That's more of a pedagogical question than one with a concrete answer. To your last point: I don't think being the best is something that merits praise, necessarily. A 10000% improvement, whatever that means to you, is probably more "impressive" than being the best, but only seeing fractional gains.
tertius 9y ago
For children, what makes makes effort into measurable improvement is guidance/teaching.
- rimliu 9y ago
  No amount of teaching will lead to improvement if there is no learning.

robg 9y ago

The more we look at "smart" the more we find it's akin to "athletic", might be broadly true, but in practice doesn't mean much without hard work and discipline. Praise the effort.

rbanffy 9y ago

I wonder if this is why so many great hackers are keen on bending rules.

oldsklgdfth 9y ago

The most dangerous thing you can do for someone is set their expectations. I think this is true for adults as well. Expectations add more pressure to meet a curtain performance that otherwise wouldn't be there. That along with a lack of solid stress coping mechanisms leads people to bend the rules.

whistlerbrk 9y ago

A major rule in parenting is to praise effort and hard work which strengthens the 'internal locus of control' as opposed to seeing some positive action and then commenting on how smart they are. People view 'smarts' as something binary, you are or you aren't and therefore you are strengthening the external locus of control. Eventually when smarts aren't enough, and additional progress requires grit, those who were praised for their determination will excel, because they know it is within them. Others who were told they were smart will hate themselves for not being as smart as they thought. So goes the theory.

moxious 9y ago
There are no widely accepted rules in parenting, because the outcomes people are trying to create in their kids are so wildly different. Raising kids is like cooking a dish over a decade or more with no recipe. Imagine one set of parents making brownies, and another trying to make Chicken Kiev. How much chocolate should you use?
- whistlerbrk 9y ago
  as I said, '... So goes the theory.' But as far as widely accepted rules in parenting, pretty much any baby book will mention this. I don't think anyone is trying to achieve an outcome where their child feels inadequate. The point is well meaning parents can unintentionally do harm with their words. So I don't know where you are going with your analogy.

mattlondon 9y ago

Anecdote: I had always been told I was intelligent and clever. When it came to the exams everyone takes as a 15/16 year old in the UK I distinctly remember thinking to myself something like: "everyone has to be able to pass these exams, so I should be able to pass easily without much effort since I am one of the clever kids". I didn't cheat, but my line of thought led me to a fairly disappointing set of results (as you'd expect). Even now I think of myself as "smarter than the average bear", but I have the feeling that people were just telling me that because they were my parent/grand parent/friendly neighbor/aunt etc and now it is SET IN STONE IN MY BRAIN after years of reinforcement as a child. What really confuses me though, is how can I think I am smarter than average, yet suffer from near constant impostor-syndrome? :-)

agumonkey 9y ago
because both are self induced judgements ? some times you will have confidence (smart) and sometimes not (impostor). The desire for adults to see genius children is detrimental I believe. I too grew up with lots of praise although it wasn't family only. It didn't help me much. Especially since I was kept in normal schools at normal pace, so now I'm bored and spoiled. College slapped 90% of that out of me. I still feel like a genius occasionally and although feel like a fraud most of the time. to add some value to the topic of education, what people call intelligence in children is often an ease for some abstraction and systematic thinking. While most kids are scattered and down to earth. But there will be subjects or times when even your(my) nice brain will fail to appreciate some idea or detail. Especially outside of your natural tastes.
computereye 9y ago
Impostor syndrome is not incompatible with being smart. Quite the contrary. It could be an extension of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The more you know and understand something, the more you can judge your performance and notice your failures, thus making you feel like an impostor.
Taylor_OD 9y ago
Anecdotal as well: It's all relative. I was homeschooled for much of my childhood and first went to a public school my Junior year of high school. I didnt think of myself as exceptionally smart - average at best. I was in a English class one day half way through the year when the teacher was putting us into group. A girl he paired me up with said, "Yay he's smart!" and that was the first time I ever thought I was a "smart" kid. That was a town in Vermont where the public education system was not very good. Later when I went to college I realized I was just about average at most things, a bit above average at some, and significantly below average at many things (due to poor homeschooling). As an adult I realize that I'm more intelligent than the average joe but when I'm in a room of professors or even people who have a passion for studying and learning I can tell I'm simply not at the same level as them.

computereye 9y ago

Confidence from being told you're smart might be important for child development and performance in school. Cheating and dishonesty are morally bad but most of the times this behavior leads to good outcome (but very bad sometimes). Looking at it another way, it's called hacking/gaming the system/bending the rules. The results of the study show that kids are more likely to cheat, but they don't show it is bad for a successful and happy life.

Idontknowmyuser 9y ago

kids that cheat are more likely to be praised for being smart.

S_A_P 9y ago

May be an unpopular take on this, but maybe something to think about. There are many things in school that amount to being "busy work" or pointless excercises. Is it possible that intellegent kids see through the bs and want to short cut what they perceive to be a waste of their time? Now the article is light on details about the kinds of cheating that occurs, so I dont know that fully explains it. I could see receiving praise and validation akin to a drug and wanting to continue receiving that.

usrusr 9y ago
What is the difference between busywork and training exercise? Often there is some kind of strawman goal to make the training exercise more interesting, but those who see through the strawman might be better off with a honest "you need to go through these stupid repeats because more interesting challenges later will be overwhelming of you can't do these in your sleep". Rocky Balboa prepares for the showdown at the end of the movie with a series of boring morning runs, not with a series of exciting bar fights. Similar patterns apply to writing, music and even maths.

danielvf 9y ago

Perhaps there's a third way. My parents didn't praise us so much for our efforts, nor for "achievements", but they were really excited about the things and projects we were doing. It was like the whole universe was full of exciting things to be discovered and mastered. For example, if we were going down a river in a canoe, my dad wasn't talking about how much work we kids were doing, or how skilled we were. He was talking about the amazing eagles, herons, hawks, and water moccasins we were seeing, and how to best shoot the rapids, and what the difference wave shapes meant about the rocks underneath. We kids didn't learn and work at canoeing because we would be praised if we did well. We wanted to explore and master the river! I've found in teaching that moving the focus off the student and onto whatever amazing thing we are learning about works really well - both with kids and adults.

ballenf 9y ago
Not all hard work has the immediate payoff of your example. There are plateaus in early learning where the payoff is impossible to see and one most proceed on almost blind faith that the task is worthwhile. Or because someone else is making you do it. Praise from a parent, mentor or teacher regarding the effort put forth in those moments can prevent the learner from giving up. But I do agree that kids (or even adults sometimes) need help recognizing the mind-blowing wonder of nature and natural phenomenon around them. I like to take the approach of asking my kids why they think animals are doing what they're doing or why the water is rough in some spots but not others, etc. They get more praise for a more thoughtful or logical answers (effort) without regard for accuracy (outcome).

AceyMan 9y ago

Having read the current child psych lit extensively, I can provide a boot-camp education on raising young'uns in one sentence: "Your children don't want to be praised; they want to be noticed." 'Dad/mom look at me / watch me do this / see what I did in class', etc, etc. all signify this — praise isn't what their psyche thirsts for, merely plain old attention. Done earnestly, giving attention takes time, and so has a 'cost' in adult's life that may be greater than you'd assume — see, the subtext of the tune "Cat's Cradle" — but the payoff is immeasurable. /George's Dad

buxtehude 9y ago
Thank you for sharing this - I just read the "Cat's Cradle" lyrics - a song I had heard all my life but never really stopped to think about. As a father of a 3 year old, I'm very happy to say I spend regular daily quality time with my son and frankly it's the best thing ever in my entire life. If you have any favorite links from early child psych lit - please share.
- AceyMan 9y ago
  Off the top of my head, "Unconditional Parenting" by Alfie Kohn is a seminal text in the field. "Parenting From the Inside Out" by Daniel Siegel & Mary Hartzell is wonderful as well.
  - NoIKnow 9y ago
    Unconditional parenting hurts self-esteem, encourages immaturity and ill prepares children for life in the adult world. Alfie Kohn should retitle that book "How to Raise a Self-Centered A-Hole". Most things in life have strings attached - yep, love is no different. Try treating someone who loves you with a lack of regard, an emotionally healthy person will draw a line. Set boundaries, show disapproval or risk raising a child with an inability to emotionally regulate when things don't go their way as they so often do in life. Unconditional love should only apply to achievement so the child will not fear that you will not love them if they fail to meet academic expectations. Instill essential qualities, such as hard work, discipline, patience, persistence, and perseverance then you give a child the tools to achieve their goals.

Klockan 9y ago

This surprises me since I wouldn't have guessed that 3 year olds know what "smart" means not to mention knowing that being smart is unrelated to effort. Could this effect actually be due to something else than growth vs innate mindset? My guess is that the teachers experience different emotions depending on word usage and that kids are affected by those emotions. Previously I believed in these studies but this result makes me question the others as well since they could suffer from the same problem.

lazyant 9y ago

"the curse of the gifted" is a thing

1337biz 9y ago

I don't like the idea that cheating is always a bad attribute. If a kid is able to play a game for its advantage and bend the rules, I respect that more than being able to follow the rules without thinking about how to get ahead.

ng12 9y ago
Are you a proponent of larceny for the same reasons? Cheating is easy, not getting caught is harder. I'm failing to see how being a good cheater is admirable.
- 1337biz 9y ago
  But not getting caught means you have gained the understanding when a situation is worth taking the risk. And this is something that you learn from experience and an important skill in life. It is not about cheating or the level therof. Only to understand situations where rules are in place and getting a feeling for when to follow them and when to break them. I think this is something very important to learn.

mlman 9y ago

I would lik