How to Nurture a Growth Mindset
If you’re not familiar with the concept of fixed and growth mindsets, the terms were first coined by Carol Dweck to describe the difference in people’s underlying beliefs about how intelligence, ability and talents.
Today, it is widely agreed that life is happier and more successful when we have a growth mindset.
What’s the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset?
Someone with a fixed mindset believes that their intellect, ability and skills are limited in the moment and in the future, this means that if they think they’re rubbish now, they also think they’ll be rubbish at it forever.
If someone has a growth mindset, they believe that with time, perseverance and teaching, they can become better than they are in the moment.
I believe there is more depth to these beliefs than what is initially clear at first glance, I think our belief system as a whole and our capacity to be vulnerable - both emotionally and socially - influences who will have which mindset. If someone is to have a growth mindset, they must be comfortable with making mistakes, with acknowledging they haven’t got the skills right now, even though they see others that have and they need to be OK with the emotional battle involved in their efforts i.e. the frustration.
Is having a fixed mindset a problem?
Having a fixed mindset could arguable protect someone from the pain of ‘not being good enough’ - being seen as less than by peers, teachers and parents - because if they believe they can’t or they’re rubbish, they’re likely not to try. Like many strategies that keep us emotionally safe in the moment, they can have implications in the long term, and here is where the problem arises.
Having a fixed mindset can thwart the development of new skills and therefore have a negative impact on overall happiness and success through time.
Does my child have a fixed mindset?
This is an interesting question and one which is asked sporadically in my email and Facebook communities. Here are some things I’d invite you to consider, to help you look deeper into what you observe.
Does the language they use match their behaviour? By this I mean, what may be considered a fixed mindset thing, could just be a language thing. Often seen with smaller children with limited intellectual and emotional language, when they say they can’t, what they may be meaning is that they find it really hard, that they can’t do it right now or they’ve had enough of trying, for now. Look at what they are communicating in their behaviours too - do they give up on it totally, or are they revisiting it and trying again? If they have given up totally - it may be they have made a concrete decision and belief, but if they revisit and try again (even if they still don’t accomplish) - you can keep them on track and influence their language by introducing some of your own (keep reading for more information on this).
Are they defending difficult emotions or struggling to self-regulate? If they are giving up and not trying, are they struggling to feel the disappointment, frustration and even anger? If they stop trying, they don’t need to feel it… Are they showing temper or becoming overly emotional? If so, it’s possible that they are struggling to regulate their experiences of trying and they are avoiding or throwing the task away, to create space from the emotions.
You know your children best - there is no one size fits all when it comes to answering this question as there are many subtleties. If you receive my emails, get in touch if you have further things you’d like to explore.
What can I do to nurture a growth mindset?
There are lots of examples of things that you can say to help nurture a growth mindset on Google, so I decided not to read those and to give 3 ways that are in line with what I have written i.e. compliments the theory and thinking.
Mindful Praise
Children like praise, they use it to establish their own values and morals and as most children like to please, it also helps them know they are being ‘good’ and their adults are happy with them - so it can help them feel secure. However, I think it’s important to balance praise; to encourage their own assessment of themselves and to praise their effort over ability.
If we are wanting our children to be comfortable with the struggle it can take to get better at things, to be OK with making mistakes and being seen to make them, then we need to value them before they succeed - Alex Carling.
Notice the impact that their effort is having on their ability
It’s OK to notice ability, it’s even better to link it to their efforts, mistakes and lessons learned
Notice their dedication, can you share how you feel about dedication as a value?
I believe it’s important to be with our children in where they are currently at, regardless if the place is uncomfortable. I also understand why discomfort invites us to skip straight to the end i.e. the success - but this doesn’t allow our children to develop at their own pace and we can never know how this is perceived by each of them; how it develops their beliefs.
Name It
If you think your child is avoiding difficult emotions or are having trouble regulating themselves, introduce what is happening for them using your awareness and emotional language. This will facilitate their own awareness and language, and influence their mindset at the same time. Click here to read the information on PACE, which describes how to communicate what you suspect is happening.
When your child tells you they can’t do it and they’ll never be able to and you notice that they are becoming overwhelmed by how difficult they are finding it - you can share this. It may sound like “I can see how important this is to you, you’re trying really hard and it’s so frustrating isn’t it, when you haven’t quite mastered it yet. I like your idea of having a break from it for a while”.
If you think your child is saying ‘I can’t…’ because they are scare - you can share that too. It may sound like “Standing up on stage can feel frightening to most people, it’s totally normal. It’s like when you first started school, that can feel scary too but it can also become something you’re used to, in time”.
If you have evidence to prove they can and they have, that’s also really useful. It was only a few weeks ago that my daughter, who is 4, was saying ‘I can’t’ like a broken record as we navigated some big boulders on the coast. I playfully said “have you noticed Rose that you keep saying that you can’t do this, but you have come this far and are getting really good at knowing where best to put your feet? I’ll be following you and holding your hand before long”.
Teach It
Depending on how well your child can manage a lengthy conversation or activity about their brain, teaching them about how their brain can grow and how they can help it grow is really useful as it develops the idea that they have agency when it comes to their own body and ability: they have power and influence.
When speaking about the brain to smaller children, I often liken it to Plasticine. Like Plasticine, it our brains work best if we spend a little time warming them up, what we produce gets better as we learn and practice and we can also add to what we already have. They also like to think back to when they were a baby, I tell them that their brain wasn’t a fully working brain back then, that parents help children to grow their brains when they are born, until the baby is big enough to be curious and want to learn new things for themselves. I’ll speak about how babies brains are helped with cuddles, eye contact, stroking and warmth and I invite them to tell me about their experiences of these.
For older children/teens, you can teach them about neuroplasticity in ways that don’t go over their heads. If they like sport, you can liken it to a muscle - the more you train the brain, the stronger it gets and the more effective it is in each moment and with each task. Instead of building muscle fibres, they’re building synapses which the brain needs to transmit it’s messages. The more tasks the brain repeats, the more synapses are developed.
You could also liken it to finding their way to the well in the middle of a forest, the more they make the journey, the more their path will be worn into the ground and the easier they will be able to navigate the journey. Like this, the brain develops pathways aka pathways that makes tasks easier over time.
Manage your Expectations
This is a bonus suggestion - whilst you clearly want the best for your child (or you wouldn’t be spending your time reading this), concepts around a growth mindset develop best at their own pace. If you find that you keep telling your child that they can and you’re introducing language and awareness for them to access, yet are left wondering what’s going wrong because they still keep saying it. Give it time. Our ability to stay focused, to show up consistently for the task and be vulnerable in our limitations can be influenced by many other life factors. Whilst I write this, children are going back to school following the initial COVID-19 lock-down, this uses up a lot of their (and our) resources and so they may be less inclined to try, persevere or even listen to your words of wisdom. If you haven’t already - come and join my free Facebook group for parents and carers, it’s called The Parent Circle and supports all your parenting needs. If you’re not on Facebook, then why not join the email community?