Both my children know the drill - wax on wax off - if you practise you can learn. But I think that praise is used for so many other reasons than raising healthy, hard-working and socially apt children.

Mostly praise is used as social signals - to show love, to give confidence, to flatter (Steemit can be rather bad in that direction) - but first and foremost it is part of our hierarchical way of classifying each other. So telling children that they are beautiful, clever and talented is often a way of expressing that they in a rather fictitious way are loved, part of a friendly herd, and hoping that by clever word-magic they will be an important part of the pack.