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Mindset Kit

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Disponible en español

Developed in collaboration with Raise The Bar. Parents learn what a growth mindset is, why it's important, and best practices to support their children in developing this learning belief.

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Mindset Kit - Growth Mindset for Parents Course

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Disponible en español Developed in collaboration with Raise The Bar. Parents learn what a growth mindset is, why it's important, and best practices to support their children in developing this learning belief.

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Mindset Kit - Mentalidad De Crecimiento Para Los Padres Course

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Elaborado en colaboración con Raise The Bar. Los padres aprenden lo que es una mentalidad de crecimiento, por qué es importante y las mejores prácticas para apoyar en sus hijos el desarrollo de esta creencia de aprendizaje.

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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RSA ANIMATE: How To Help Every Child Fulfil Their Potential

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Math.Practice.MP1

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

Practice: Mathematical Practice Standards

MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need. Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, \"Does this make sense?\" They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Math.Practice.MP3

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

Practice: Mathematical Practice Standards

MP3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments. They make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures. They are able to analyze situations by breaking them into cases, and can recognize and use counterexamples. They justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others. They reason inductively about data, making plausible arguments that take into account the context from which the data arose. Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and--if there is a flaw in an argument--explain what it is. Elementary students can construct arguments using concrete referents such as objects, drawings, diagrams, and actions. Such arguments can make sense and be correct, even though they are not generalized or made formal until later grades. Later, students learn to determine domains to which an argument applies. Students at all grades can listen or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Math.2.NBT.B.7

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

2: Grade 2

NBT: Number & Operations in Base Ten

B: Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract

7:
Add and subtract within 1000, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method. Understand that in adding or subtracting three-digit numbers, one adds or subtracts hundreds and hundreds, tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose or decompose tens or hundreds.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does Ms. Montoy-Wilson help her students become excited about challenges?

2. Why is it important for students to articulate their thinking about challenging work?

3. How does Ms. Montoy-Wilson ensure that her students are struggling productively?

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Science Social Studies Arts / 1 / Teacher

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Encouraging Students to Persist Through Challenges

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Students in Maricela Montoy-Wilson's second grade class persist through challenging math work. Students work on three-digit story problems, using resources and strategies to come to a solution. Maricela Montoy-Wilson discusses the ways in which she helps students to persevere to make sense of the problems.

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A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents tried to boost their son's confidence by assuring him that he was very smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is a composite drawn from several children). Schoolwork, their son maintained, was boring and pointless.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability-along with confidence in that ability-is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 35 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children's innate abilities, as Jonathan's parents did, reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have a "growth mind-set," which encourages a focus on "process" (consisting of personal effort and effective strategies) rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.

The Opportunity of Defeat
I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human motivation-and how people persevere after setbacks-as a psychology graduate student at Yale University in the 1960s. Animal experiments by psychologists Martin Seligman, Steven Maier and Richard Solomon, all then at the University of Pennsylvania, had shown that after repeated failures, most animals conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond their control. After such an experience, the researchers found, an animal often remains passive even when it can effect change-a state they called learned helplessness.

People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone reacts to setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people's beliefs about why they had failed.

In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough. They also solved many more problems even in the face of difficulty. Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their success on easier problems did not improve their ability to solve hard math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked 60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as "I never did have a good rememory," and their problem-solving strategies deteriorated.

Others, meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills. One advised himself: "I should slow down and try to figure this out." Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips and said, "I love a challenge!" The other, also confronting the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly declared, "I was hoping this would be informative!" Predictably, the students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these studies.

Two Views of Intelligence
Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the two general classes of learners-helpless versus mastery-oriented. I realized that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different "theories" of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount, and that's that. I call this a "fixed mind-set." Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because slipups stem from a lack of effort or acquirable skills, not fixed ability, they can be remedied by perseverance. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating; they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007. Psychologists Lisa Blackwell, then at Columbia University, and Kali H. Trzesniewski, then at Stanford University, and I monitored 373 students for two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of seventh grade, we assessed the students' mind-sets by asking them to agree or disagree with statements such as "Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can't really change." We then assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades. In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with less regard for learning. They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests.

Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students with a growth mind-set were comparable to those of students who displayed a fixed mind-set. But as the work became more difficult, the students with a growth mind-set showed greater persistence. As a result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the end of the first semester-and the gap between the two groups continued to widen during the two years we followed them.

Along with psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, now at Columbia, I found a similar relation between mind-set and achievement in a 2003 study of 128 Columbia freshman premed students who were enrolled in a challenging general chemistry course. Although all the students cared about grades, the ones who earned the best grades were those who placed a high premium on learning rather than on showing that they were smart in chemistry. The focus on learning strategies, effort and persistence paid off for these students.

Confronting Deficiencies
A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at work and in their social relationships. In a study published in 1999 of 168 freshmen entering the University of Hong Kong, where all instruction and coursework are in English, three Hong Kong colleagues and I found that students with a growth mind-set who scored poorly on their English proficiency exam were far more inclined to take a remedial English course than were low-scoring students with a fixed mind-set. The students with a stagnant view of intelligence were presumably unwilling to admit to their deficit and thus passed up the opportunity to correct it.

A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or ignore constructive criticism and advice. Research by psychologists Peter Heslin, now at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Don VandeWalle of Southern Methodist University and Gary Latham of the University of Toronto shows that managers who have a fixed mind-set are less likely to seek or welcome feedback from their employees than are managers with a growth mind-set. Presumably, managers with a growth mind-set see themselves as works-in-progress and understand that they need feedback to improve, whereas bosses with a fixed mind-set are more likely to see criticism as reflecting their underlying level of competence. Assuming that other people are not capable of changing either, executives with a fixed mind-set are also less likely to mentor their underlings. But after Heslin, VandeWalle and Latham gave managers a tutorial on the value and principles of the growth mind-set, supervisors became more willing to coach their employees and gave more useful advice.

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal relationships as well, through people's willingness-or unwillingness-to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006 study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath, now at Wake Forest University. After all, if you think that human personality traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however, are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships will lead to resolutions.

Proper Praise
How do we transmit a growth mind-set to our children? One way is by telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. For instance, talking about mathematical geniuses who were more or less born that way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great mathematicians who fell in love with math and developed amazing skills engenders a growth mind-set, our studies have shown. People also communicate mind-sets through praise. Although many, if not most, parents believe that they should build up children by telling them how brilliant and talented they are, our research suggests that this is misguided.

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998, for example, psychologist Claudia M. Mueller, now at Stanford, and I gave children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10 problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We praised some of them for their intelligence: "Wow ... that's a really good score. You must be smart at this." We commended others for their process: "Wow ... that's a really good score. You must have worked really hard."

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging assignment-they wanted an easy one instead-far more often than the kids applauded for their process. (Most of those lauded for their hard work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.) When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores, even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In contrast, students praised for their hard work did not lose confidence when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved markedly on the easier problems that followed.

Making Up Your Mind-set
In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell, Trzesniewski and I designed an eight-session workshop for 91 students whose math grades were declining in their first year of junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article entitled "You Can Grow Your Brain." They were taught that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction, many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion and said, "You mean I don't have to be dumb?"

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the control group. One teacher wrote: "Your workshop has already had an effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra effort and often doesn't turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and lower.)"

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine Good, now at Baruch College, Joshua Aronson of New York University and Michael Inzlicht, now at the University of Toronto, reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth mind-set.

We have now encapsulated such instruction in an interactive computer program called Brainology. Its five modules teach students about the brain-what it does and how to make it work better. In a virtual brain lab, users can click on brain regions to determine their functions or on nerve endings to see how connections form or strengthen when people learn. Users can also advise virtual students with problems as a way of practicing how to handle schoolwork difficulties; additionally, users keep an online journal of their study practices.

New York City seventh graders who tested Brainology told us that the program had changed their view of learning and how to promote it. One wrote: "My favorite thing from Brainology is the neurons part where when u [sic] learn something there are connections and they keep growing. I always picture them when I'm in school." A teacher said of the students who used the program: "They offer to practice, study, take notes, or pay attention to ensure that connections will be made."

Teaching children such information is not just a ploy to get them to study. People may well differ in intelligence, talent and ability. And yet research is converging on the conclusion that great accomplishment, and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift. Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and Cézanne were not simply born with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained effort. Similarly, hard work and discipline contribute more to school achievement than IQ does.

Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently become unteachable. Similarly, many people accomplish little in their jobs without constant praise and encouragement to maintain their motivation. If we foster a growth mind-set in our homes and schools, however, we will give our children the tools to succeed in their pursuits and to become productive workers and citizens.
-Carol S. Dweck

A for Effort
According to a survey we conducted in the mid-1990s, 85 percent of parents believed that praising children's ability or intelligence when they perform well is important for making them feel smart. But our work shows that praising a child's intelligence makes a child fragile and defensive. So, too, does generic praise that suggests a stable trait, such as "You are a good artist." Praise can be very valuable, however, if it is carefully worded. Praise for the specific process a child used to accomplish something fosters motivation and confidence by focusing children on the actions that lead to success. Such process praise may involve commending effort, strategies, focus, persistence in the face of difficulty, and willingness to take on challenges. The following are examples of such communications:
You did a good job drawing. I like the detail you added to the people's faces. You really studied for your social studies test. You read the material over several times, outlined it and tested yourself on it. It really worked! I like the way you tried a lot of different strategies on that math problem until you finally got it. That was a hard English assignment, but you stuck with it until you got it done. You stayed at your desk and kept your concentration. That's great! I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work-doing the research, designing the apparatus, making the parts and building it. You are going to learn a lot of great things.
Parents and teachers can also teach children to enjoy the process of learning by expressing positive views of challenges, effort and mistakes. Here are some examples:
Boy, this is hard-this is fun. Oh, sorry, that was too easy-no fun. Let's do something more challenging that you can learn from. Let's all talk about what we struggled with today and learned from. I'll go first. Mistakes are so interesting. Here's a wonderful mistake.
Let's see what we can learn from it.
-C.S.D.

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A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for tests.

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth | TED

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mindsets for parents: strategies to encourage growth mindsets in kids

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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Mindsets for Parents: Strategies to Encourage Growth Mindsets in Kids

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All parents want their children to be successful in school, sports, and extracurricular activities. But it's not just about giving your kids praise or setting them on the right direction. Research shows that success is often dependent on mindset. Hard work, perseverance, and effort are all hallma...

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The Grit Guide for Teens: A Workbook to Help You Build Perseverance, Self-Control, and a Growth Mindsetby Caren Baruch-Feldman PhD 

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The Grit Guide for Teens: A Workbook to Help You Build Perseverance, Self-Control, and a Growth Mindsetby Caren Baruch-Feldman PhD 

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

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Train Ugly is the marriage of two foundations of learning: motor learning and growth mindset. We're going to dive into the science and share these incredibly important principles with you.
FROM THERE WE'LL WORK TOGETHER TO PUT THESE PRINCIPLES INTO ACTION.
Research pioneered by Stanford Professor, Carol Dweck showing that our mindsets have the biggest impact on our development and future success. Understanding this research is the key to being a great learner. It can help develop grit, mental toughness, and the ability to rise to the occasion under pressure.

In order to fully embrace the challenges, mistakes, and ugliness that comes with learning - we MUST work to develop a growth mindset within ourself and others.

The study of how people learn and develop skill through practice. This science reveals a number of flaws and misconceptions in the "traditional" approach to practice design and skill development.

Applying these motor learning principles to our practice will create a little chaos, confusion, and ugliness. But they will also help to develop better, more well rounded players who are prepared to perform when it matters the most.

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Train Ugly is the marriage of two foundations of learning: motor learning and growth mindset. We're going to dive into the science and share these incredibly important principles with you. FROM THERE WE'LL WORK TOGETHER TO PUT THESE PRINCIPLES INTO ACTION.

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Does your child take on challenges and persevere when it comes to learning? It may be more than just being motivated or resilient. Your child's approach may be the result of having what's called a growth mindset.

This term describes how a child faces challenges and setbacks. Kids with a growth mindset believe their abilities can improve over time. By comparison, kids with a fixed mindset think their abilities are a set trait that can't change, no matter how hard they try.

For kids with learning and attention issues, having a growth mindset can have real benefits. It can help kids (and parents) reframe how they approach challenges. It can also provide insight into what types of teaching and support can help kids be more successful.

Learn more about growth mindset and what developing a growth mindset can mean for your child.

What Is Growth Mindset?

The concept of growth mindset has been around for a while. It was developed by Stanford University professor Carol Dweck. Dweck and her colleagues did a series of studies that found that kids who pushed through challenges held the belief that they could improve their abilities. Kids who pulled back from challenges believed their abilities were fixed.

Picture a child who struggles with writing and has gotten low grades on her recent papers. If she's convinced she's "just bad at writing," and that no amount of work will change that, she's showing a fixed mindset, and is likely to stop trying. If she says she has trouble with writing, but continues to try to improve at it, that shows a growth mindset.

But how a child approaches challenges isn't set in stone, according to Dweck. That's one of the misconceptions about growth mindset-that either you have it or you don't. In fact, we all have a mix of fixed and growth mindsets that change based on the experiences we have and the feedback we get.

Having a growth mindset means more than just accepting feedback and being open-minded. Kids with this mindset take feedback, and what they learn from experience, and create strategies for improving. They believe that even if they fail at something, they can still succeed.

Why Growth Mindset Is About More Than Just Effort

Another misconception about growth mindset is that it's the same thing as effort. Knowing the difference can allow parents to use a type of praise that can help promote growth mindset.

Parents sometimes think it helps to praise their child's talent or "smarts." But if you say to your child, "You're really good at math," it actually promotes a fixed mindset. You're really saying that the ability to do math is just something your child "has."

Praising your child's effort-"you worked really hard"-is helpful, and can help build your child's self-esteem. But that's not enough to promote a growth mindset. Kids can try hard but not succeed because they aren't using strategies that work.

What's most important is to praise the way they approached the challenge, not how hard they tried or how well they did. For instance, you might praise your child for the way she solved a math problem or how she organized her homework to get it all done.

This is called process praise. It's the most helpful type of praise for promoting a growth mindset. It puts the emphasis on the steps your child took to get to the end result.

By focusing on process, you and your child's teachers can show how getting stuck, asking for help and trying new strategies are important, too. For instance, you might say to your child:

"I'm impressed at how hard you worked to complete that science project. I know you had trouble getting started, but it made a lot of sense to ask your teacher for help in figuring out how to break down the assignment. It seems like working with a partner really helped keep you accountable for getting all your work done. Your grade reflects all that hard work!"

In this video about growth mindset, watch expert Ellen Galinsky explain how to encourage your child to take on challenges.

Growth Mindset and Kids With Learning and Attention Issues

We all have times when we feel like we'll never get better at something, or that we're destined to fail. Kids with learning and attention issues often face more challenges and setbacks than other kids. That may lead them to have more of a fixed mindset about their difficulties.

Kids with learning and attention issues can feel judged and criticized. They know they're not doing as well as their peers, and they may feel "stupid." That can make them insecure or defensive, which can get in the way of growth.

The mindsets of parents and teachers can also get in the way. They may tell kids to just "try harder" using the same strategies or ways of learning that haven't worked before. Doing that isn't going to make kids feel good about the effort they're putting in.

How to Help Your Child Develop a Growth Mindset

A big part of having a growth mindset is not letting failing at something stop you from working to improve. It's important for your child to know that setbacks can actually provide a way forward. Tell your child it's OK to speak up when something isn't working. Encourage her to self-advocate and ask for help from the people around her.

Your child also needs to know that the people around her believe she can find ways to fix mistakes. Your natural response may be to reassure your child by saying something like, "Don't worry about it. Maybe science just isn't your subject." That reaction can promote a fixed mindset, however. It teaches your child that science is something she can't improve at.

Instead, it's better to have a conversation about next steps. Talk about what your child learned from the experience. For instance, you might say, "How would you study differently next time? Would it help to talk to your teacher? Would a study guide be useful?"

Developing growth mindset is an ongoing process. Getting and taking feedback from others, learning from mistakes and finding innovative ways to approach tasks isn't easy. But it's a valuable way to help your child learn that her talents can be developed.

Looking for ways to help your child handle challenges? Explore strategies to promote positive thinking. Discover ways to build your child's self-esteem. And find new ways to respond when your child is frustrated.

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Does your child take on challenges and persevere when it comes to learning? It may be more than just being motivated or resilient. Your child's approach may be the result of having what's called a growth mindset. This term describes how a child faces challenges and setbacks.

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It's not easy to see your child have a setback, especially after she's worked really hard. But it can be hard to avoid. Kids with learning and attention issues face challenges other kids don't. They struggle in school. And they may have trouble with everyday skills like self-control, following directions or picking up on social cues.

But facing challenges and learning from them can have an upside. It can help your child build resilience. This vital life skill is what allows kids to tackle their challenges despite having setbacks. Learn more about what resilience means and how to help your child develop it.

The Old Concept of Resilience

We know resilience is important. But what exactly does it mean? For decades, resilience was seen as the ability to recover from disaster and hardship. Researchers focused on how kids and adults bounced back from tragedies like hurricanes, fires and floods. They studied why some people get "back to normal" quickly while others continue to struggle.

Parents typically viewed resilience in a similar way. They'd think of it in terms of how quickly their child bounced back from a serious illness, accident or other major event. In other words, resilience was something their child "showed" when faced with a big challenge.

The New Way of Thinking About Resilience

Today, resilience has a much broader meaning. For researchers and professionals working with kids, it's not just about "bouncing back." It's about "bouncing forward." Resilience doesn't just mean getting back to normal after facing a difficult situation. It means learning from the process in order to become stronger and better at tackling the next challenge.

It's not limited to tragedies or major life events, either. Resilience applies to more common struggles too. In fact, when kids respond to any type of challenge-including trouble with learning-it creates an opportunity to bounce forward. It helps them learn coping skills and how to find solutions to problems.

For instance, if a child falls off her bicycle after hitting a rock in the road, she may become more careful about watching for obstacles. If she does poorly on a test, she may work to improve her study skills.

Using everyday setbacks to explore new and better ways to approach things helps all kids. But it can be even more valuable for kids with learning and attention issues. It creates opportunities for them to build key skills for working on weaknesses and gaining new strengths.

Learning from setbacks can empower kids with learning and attention issues. It can help them build self-awareness and self-advocacy skills. It can also help them develop new strategies and tools for solving problems. And it can boost their motivation and self-esteem.

Helping Your Child Develop Resilience

Resilience was once thought of as a character trait that was more or less set in stone. But professionals now view it as a skill that can be actively taught. The key to resilience is mindset: how we think about whatever challenge we're facing.

Teaching resilience to kids involves preparing them for challenges. That includes reflecting on how they handled them and discussing other solutions to the problem.

Here are some ways to help your child with learning and attention issues build resilience:

Expose her to challenges. Your child can't learn if she doesn't have the chance to do things that are difficult-and perhaps fail at them. Find everyday situations where she'll need to work things out on her own, try different strategies and persist even when things get tough.

The playground can be a great spot for this. Struggling to get across the monkey bars or working with other kids to build a bridge across a stream are both learning opportunities.

Don't jump in to fix things. When things aren't going well, your child may need your support. But that doesn't mean solving the problem for her. Give your child guidance. But also allow her space to find her own solutions and strategies before jumping in with yours. A certain amount of frustration can lead to positive results, which can help build persistence.

Let consequences do some of the teaching. When kids do something that results in a negative outcome, it can feel defeating. But it can also motivate them to change. Negative experiences can lead them to find strategies that lead to positive outcomes.

Let's say your fourth grader keeps leaving her homework at home. Missing assignments pulls down her grade for the marking period. But that negative outcome motivates her to use the organization strategies you came up with at home, and her grades improve. Now she's learned resilience and organization skills.

Talk about the lessons learned. After your child has experienced a setback or a disappointment, help her make sense of it. Talk about the strategies she used and discuss things she could have done differently.

Make sure to suggest people she could have gone to for help and ways she could have asked for help along the way. Reflecting on what happened can help her identify supports that might be useful next time.

Avoid a "sink or swim" situation. Resilience is about learning from challenges and moving forward. But what if she had no guidance at all? It's important to give your child enough support to face challenges but not so much help that she can't make mistakes and learn from them.

One way to do this is by using a "scaffolding" approach. Think about how people teach kids to ride a bike. First, you give a lot of support, holding on to the back of the seat and the handlebars. Gradually, you give less and less support, until you finally let go.

This same approach can be used to teach kids resilience through any challenge. If your middle-schooler is struggling with an assignment, you can review the directions with her. You can guide her to look back at the textbook or suggest she call a friend for help. You can also encourage her to reach out to her teacher.

If she doesn't do those things and gets a low grade on the assignment, it may motivate her to try using those supports the next time. Or she may come up with another strategy that works for her.

Encourage her to ask for additional supports at school. If your child is still struggling with the work after trying different strategies, you can suggest she talk with her case manager or teacher about additional supports. She may not follow through. But she's still had an opportunity to learn how to persist in the face of a challenge and how to advocate for herself along the way.

Find out what your child needs to be successful in school. It's important to make sure your child is getting the help she needs to have success. If she's struggling in school, and you're not sure why, consider having her evaluated. She may be eligible for supports, services and accommodations.

Building resilience doesn't always come easily. Even when your child learns from her challenges, they can still be frustrating. Help her learn constructive ways to deal with her frustration. Give her honest feedback and praise for the hard work she puts in. And inspire her by sharing stories about the many successful people with learning and attention issues.

To learn more, watch as an expert talks about building resilience in kids with learning issues.

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The Importance of Resilience for Kids With Learning and Attention Issues

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It's not easy to see your child have a setback, especially after she's worked really hard. But it can be hard to avoid. Kids with learning and attention issues face challenges other kids don't. They struggle in school. And they may have trouble with everyday skills like self-control, following directions or picking up on social cues.

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11 books to help kids build a growth mindset

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Having a growth mindset can help kids with learning and thinking differences learn to take on challenges. Explore these growth mindset books.