One little change in how you talk to your kids can help them be more successful.
Dr. Carol Dweck, a researcher who is pioneering a shift in how we view motivation in humans, is one of the few evangelizing about how to instill a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.
Dr. Dweck tells Aker,
In my work, we find that some students have a fixed mindset about their intellectual abilities and talents. They think intelligence is just a fixed trait. You have a certain amount, and that's that. This is the mindset that makes kids afraid to try, because they're afraid to look dumb.
But other students have a growth mindset. They believe that intelligence can be developed through their effort, dedication, learning, and mentorship from others. They don't think everyone's the same or that anyone can be Einstein, but they understand that even Einstein wasn't the guy he became before he put in years and years of dedicated labor.
I'm going to organize this by telling you about a study we did with hundreds of students making the transition to 7th grade. They're about 13 years old. It's an extremely difficult transition, the work gets substantially harder, the grading gets more stringent, the environment becomes less personal, and that's a crucial time. It's a time when many students turn off to school.
So, as they entered we measured their mindsets. That is we saw whether they believed intelligence was fixed or could be developed. We monitored their grades in math over the next two years. We also measured a lot about their attitudes toward learning. They had entered 7th grade with just about identical achievement test scores. But by the end of the first term, their grades jumped apart and continued to diverge over the next two years. The only thing that differed were their mindsets.
Now, let's see why and how this happened. The first thing we found was that they had completely different goals in school. The number one goal for kids in the fixed mindset is look smart at all times and at all costs. So their whole lives are oriented toward avoiding tasks that might show a deficiency. But in a growth mindset, where they believe intelligence can be developed, their cardinal rule is learn at all times and at all costs.
That brings us to the second mindset rule. In a fixed mindset, effort is a bad thing. They believe if you have ability, you shouldn't need effort. And if you need a lot of effort, it's a sign that you don't have ability. I believe that belief, that if you have ability, you shouldn't need effort, is one of the worst beliefs that anyone can have. I think it's why so many of our promising students don't fulfill their potential. They go along, coasting along, not trying that hard, the other kids have to try. One day they have to try too, and they can't do it. Whereas students in a growth mindset say effort is what activates their ability.
And rule number three, in a fixed mindset, a setback or deficiency measures you and reveals your limitations. So what we find is that those students in a fixed mindset try to hide their mistakes or run from their mistakes, conceal their deficiencies. But those in a growth mindset, they make mistakes, setbacks, natural part of learning, its what happens when you take on challenges. So a fixed mindset gives no way for students to handle difficulty. They may get discouraged, give up quickly, or become defensive, acting bored. Often this idea, the statement, "It's boring" is a cover for a fixed mindset, it means "I'm afraid to try," or acting out and blame the teacher or the material.
...we have found that praising children's intelligence harms them. It puts them into a fixed mindset and turns them off to challenging learning.
...The majority of kids who were praised for their intelligence rejected the chance to learn in favor of something they were sure to do well on. But those praised for the process overwhelmingly wanted the hard task they could learn from. They didn't feel they were in jeopardy if they struggled for a while.
...sit around the dinner table and say, "Who had a fabulous struggle today?" And each person shares a struggle. Or if a child does something quickly and easily, instead of rushing to tell them how good they are at it, we should say, "I'm sorry, I wasted your time. Let's do something hard. Let's do something you can learn from."
Recently I have fallen in love with a new word, "nyet." I heard at the high school in Chicago, where when they didn't master a unit, instead of a failing grade, they got the grade "not yet," and I thought, isn't that great, because not yet means, "Hey, you're on that learning curve, you're somewhere." So, when a child says, "I'm not good at math." "Yet." It's like, "Get back on that learning curve." "I can't do it." "Yet." "I tried but it didn't work." "Yet." The more research shows us that human abilities are capable of growth, the more it becomes a basic human right for students to experience that growth, to live in environments in which all students can fulfill their potential.
