What is the Growth Mindset?
If this is your first time here, welcome! This is a 12-week series to help parents and teachers discover hidden gems across the internet that will help them teach Growth Mindset to the children in their lives.
What is it? Fixed versus Growth Mindset
A fixed mindset means a child believes his or her intelligence is set and that there’s no changing it. With a growth mindset, a child believes persistence and hard work lead to success.
How can you help?
**Allow children to make mistakes
**Praise them on the process (work) instead of the end result (grade)
** Teach them that mistakes and failures will help them learn and grow
**Help your child change their inner dialogue:
Instead of “I can’t do this,” teach them to say, “ I can’t do this yet.”
- Instead of “I’m not smart,” try “ I will learn to do this!”
- Instead of “That didn’t work!” tell them to say “There’s always Plan B!”
- Instead of “I give up!” have them practice saying, “I’ll try it a different way!”
- Instead of “This is too hard!” have them say “This may take some time.”
**Be mindful of areas that can promote a Fixed Mindset (undesirable mindset)
**Pay attention to: what children are
- Watching (television, youtube, etc.)
- What children listen to (music)
- What they are reading (books)
Use www.commonsensemedia.org for reviews and recommendations for children’s media and technology
Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg
A life lesson that all parents want their children to learn: It’s OK to make a mistake. In fact, hooray for mistakes! A mistake is an adventure in creativity, a portal of discovery. A spill doesn’t ruin a drawing—not when it becomes the shape of a goofy animal. And an accidental tear in your paper? Don’t be upset about it when you can turn it into the roaring mouth of an alligator.
How this book teaches Growth Mindset:
This book teaches growth mindset, but it’s also a beautiful book to have in your family or classroom library. This book illustrates, with very few words, how mistakes can teach us and how we can learn from them. On one page, it has a torn piece of paper, OOPS! A torn piece of paper! On the next page, they’ve used the torn piece of paper to create a beautiful piece of art, which is an alligator, and the torn piece of paper is the alligator’s mouth. So it says “a torn piece of paper is just the beginning.” Beautiful book – super simple and would be great to use with younger children.
A video to teach Growth Mindset:
Lesson on teaching Growth Mindset:
Anchor Chart for Growth Mindset Dialogue – talks about optimism with this guide question, “What can I say to myself?”
