6 research-backed ways to make sure your kids have grit by Eric Barker on Mar 29, 2016, 11:54 AM Advertisement
 What makes kids persist? What gives them the “grit” to keep working hard in school, to get good grades and ultimately be successful in life? A big contributor is having a “growth mindset.” You may have heard about this before but many people don’t understand it nearly as well as they think. To make sure you and I get it right I called Carol Dweck. She came up with the growth mindset idea. Carol is a professor at Stanford University and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. A lot of people are making a lot of mistakes when it comes to this subject. Here’s Carol: As soon as a growth mindset became a desirable thing to have, many people started saying they had it. If they were open minded and flexible, they said they had a growth mindset. If they were kind to people, they said they had a growth mindset. A growth mindset is not something you declare, it’s a really difficult journey you take over a long period of time. So let’s get to the bottom of what a growth mindset really is, what people are getting wrong, and how we can all use it to increase grit and success in our lives and the lives of our children… What Is A “Growth Mindset”, Really? A “fixed” mindset says that your basic qualities (like intelligence) are set in stone. You have what you have and that’s all you’re getting. A “growth” mindset is the belief that your abilities can be improved through effort. And this means you can get better and hard work pays off. Here’s Carol: When people are in a fixed mindset they believe their basic qualities, their talents, abilities, intelligence are just fixed traits, they have a certain amount and that’s it. When they’re in this mindset they often become concerned with how much they have. “If I do this will I look smart? Will I feel smart? Will people think I’m talented or not?” When people are in a growth mindset, they look at their talent and abilities as things that can be developed through hard work, good strategies, or help and input from others. They’re more willing to jump in, take a challenge, and roll with the punches because they’re not seeing everything as reflecting on their deep permanent ability. When people have a fixed mindset and they don’t do well at something immediately, they quit. If you don’t believe you can really improve, why keep trying? From Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: Students with the fixed mindset stayed interested only when they did well right away. Those who found it difficult showed a big drop in their interest and enjoyment. If it wasn’t a testimony to their intelligence, they couldn’t enjoy it. But when you have a growth mindset, great things can happen. Here’s Carol: When people are in a growth mindset they’re more willing to take on challenging tasks. They’re more engaged by mistakes or setbacks rather than discouraged. They delve into a mistake, they process it, they correct it. They’re more inspired by people who are better than they are, instead of intimidated and discouraged. In many of our studies we see that they achieve more in the long run. In her research, when kids were encouraged to take a growth mindset, they showed more grit and got better grades: In Study 1 with 373 7th graders, the belief that intelligence is malleable (incremental theory) predicted an upward trajectory in grades over the two years of junior high school, while a belief that intelligence is fixed (entity theory) predicted a flat trajectory. Not only that, but getting kids away from a fixed mindset made them less aggressive and nicer: Compared to no-treatment and coping skills control groups, the incremental theory group behaved significantly less aggressively and more prosocially 1 month postintervention and exhibited fewer conduct problems 3 months postintervention. So a growth mindset is definitely a benefit. But there’s a catch… Just because you might have a growth mindset doesn’t mean your kids will too. You need to make an effort to deliberately encourage it in your children. Here’s Carol: One of the most intriguing things we’re finding now is that there isn’t a strong relationship between parents’ mindsets and their kids. Many parents may have a growth mindset but it’s not visible to their kids. They need to really focus on the child’s process, their strategies, their hard work, their use of resources and tie it to the child’s improvement instead of focusing on the child’s ability or just the outcome. (To learn the number one mistake parents make when arguing with kids, click here.) So how do you instill this perspective in your children — and not make the mistakes many people do when it comes to growth mindset? Here are 6 tips from Carol that will help: SEE ALSO: 21 books successful people read to their kids  1. Don’t Praise Ability Or Intelligence When you celebrate a child’s abilities you promote a fixed mindset. They have a quality and they won’t want to “lose” it. So they’ll take fewer risks and will be more likely to quit. Here’s Carol: A lot of our work shows focusing on the child’s ability, even complimenting the child’s ability, can make the child feel, “Oh, it’s fixed and you’re proud of me for that reason” and they may stop taking on challenges or they may see errors as serious. Carol’s research showed praising a child’s intelligence instead of their effort reduced grit, made the kids enjoy their work less and they didn’t perform as well: …six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students’ achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. What should you compliment? Their effort, strategies and choices. This tells them that elbow grease is the way to improve, and it’s not all due to one “you-have-it-or-you-don’t” innate quality. From Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: Remember that praising children’s intelligence or talent, tempting as it is, sends a fixed-mindset message. It makes their confidence and motivation more fragile. Instead, try to focus on the processes they used— their strategies, effort, or choices. Practice working the process praise into your interactions with your children. (To learn how to raise happy children, click here.) So you’re praising effort, not ability. Great. But what are the mistakes people are making with growth mindset that we need to address?
 2. Don’t Ignore Outcome, Tie It To Effort A lot of people think that praising effort means you should ignore the outcome — what the kid achieved. Wrong. You can celebrate a child’s success, but attribute it to their hard work, not innate talent. Here’s Carol: Now a lot of parents have interpreted this as meaning always praise the effort and not the outcome. That’s an oversimplification because it’s not just effort, it’s also strategies and use of resources. It’s not “ignore the outcome,” it’s “tie it to the outcome.” Sometimes parents will say, “I’m so tempted to be happy when my child succeeds or masters something difficult but I know I shouldn’t,” and of course you should. Just tie it to the process, that what the child is supposed to learn is that a good process results in progress. (To learn what new research says the most important parenting skills are, click here.) But what if the kid doesn’t succeed when they try something? That’s not to be ignored, it’s actually very important…
 3. Respond Positively To Failure Another mistake people make with trying to promote a growth mindset is they think they have to gloss over or ignore when a child fails. Wrong again. This is a critical time for learning. Showing the kid you don’t have to be perfect every time and that failure is how you learn and improve is quite valuable. Here’s Carol: The other thing we’re seeing in our research is that the way parents respond to a child’s errors, mistakes, and failures is critically important. Many parents may have a growth mindset but they might worry that if their child experiences failure they’ll be harmed or lose their confidence and so they tend to gloss over or get a little anxious and the child picks up on that. What we’re finding is that it’s the parents who really respond positively to the child’s mistakes that show how they’re an opportunity for learning. Then the child sees that these setbacks are part of the learning process, and you can capitalize on them. They’re not something that should engender anxiety or make you feel inept. (To learn what science says about how to have a happy family, click here.) A lot of people are good at praising effort but still aren’t really encouraging a growth mindset. Why? Just saying, “Try harder” isn’t enough…
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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