A while back I spent some time talking about the differences in having a Fixed and a Growth Mindset in Nurturing Your Child’s Success With A Growth Mindset and shared a few ideas on how to nurture the Growth Mindset. I wanted to expand on that piece and give you a few more simple tips to fostering this mindset during your day to day interactions with your child when they are struggling.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MINDSETS:
A child with a Growth Mindset believes that traits can be developed and improved. Their primary focus is to improve and they embrace and welcome challenges. They believe that effort is the path to mastery and that effort is necessary to grow and master useful skills and talents.
On the other hand, a child with a Fixed Mindset believes that traits, talents and abilities are innate, static and cannot be improved. Their primary desire is to “appear” smart or talented and thus they tend to avoid challenges to safe face and maintain their appearance or status. They believe that effort demonstrates one’s lack of innate ability and that effort is for those who are not fortunate enough to possess natural talents, “smarts" or abilities.
A FEW SIMPLE TIPS TO FOSTERING A GROWTH MINDSET:
1. CONNECT Start every interaction with your child by mindfully listening to them and empathizing with their feelings. Many times children just want to feel heard, and by using a simple empathetic statement and we can easily accomplish that by saying things like:
“Oh no…”
”Uh oh…”
”It’s so hard when…”
”You sound/look…”
”It’s such a bummer when…”
2. ASK more CURIOSITY QUESTIONS:
“What do you think you could do differently?”
”What is another way to accomplish that? ‘
”What have you tried in the past that might work here?”
”How did you figure that out?”
”What did you learn?”
3. ACKNOWLEDGE and ENCOURAGE their efforts and the process :
"It looks like you spent a lot of time figuring that out.”
”You did it!”
”You worked hard, and I am noticing how…”
”There is definitely an improvement in…”
”You were very focused…”
” You didn’t give up when…”
4. HABITUALLY USE THE WORD “YET” when your child is frustrated when a skilled has not yet been mastered.
”You haven’t figured it out yet.”
”It isn’t easy yet.”
”You’re not really good at it yet.”
”You don’t know it all yet.”
Our kids need to struggle and make lots of mistakes in their development in order to be more resilient and gritty It is through this struggle they will find success in their childhood and throughout life. With a parent who intentionally fosters a growth mindset, kids learn the true meaning of the word FAIL (First Attempt At Learning) and embrace their mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth.
