Building a Growth Mindset

• Grit – applying constant effort to meet or attain a goal regardless of struggle or failure
• Resilience – bouncing back after one is faced with an obstacle
• Growth Mindset – understanding that wanting to be successful does not happen naturally rather it takes time, effort, learning, and sometimes failure. A growth mindset also sees effort, failure, and struggle as learning opportunities.

Importance of Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset is important because it helps children and adults have a view on honoring the process of learning more than the outcome. When children don’t have a growth mindset, they exhibit behavior that is based on fear of being unsuccessful; this is called having a fixed mindset. The graphic below gives more examples of the difference between fixed and growth mindset.

How-To Instill Growth Mindset in Your Child

Parent-Child Relationship

At times it can be difficult to put these concepts into practice due to external pressures from school, extracurriculars, and society but small changes and conversations can go a long way. Here are some small changes that can instill a growth mindset in your child. 

Modeling Growth Mindset

It is difficult for us to instill skills and traits within our children that we have not grown up practicing. Modeling the skill of a growth mindset can elevate a child’s willingness to mimic this behavior. This can be done by narrating mistakes you make and thinking of solutions in real-time. For example, when plans don’t go the way you wished or when you make a mistake when creating a meal – verbalize how you will solve for these challenges.