Broadly, don't praise people for things that they couldn't have done differently. All it'll do is increase the importance that they assign to a trait that is out of their control. That makes them weaker, not stronger.
This applies to physical appearance as well, for instance.
But people have a lot of control over many aspects of our physical appearance.
We also have a lot of control over many aspects of how "smart" we are.
Don't we?
Although my 8-year-old son likes his teacher, he is frequently bored at school. He attends a high quality suburban public school in the United States. He has a lot of traits in common with LessWrong readers, and we would like advice for what he can do to counter his boredom. Many of you must have found grade school more or less tedious. What were your coping strategies?