In her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, psychologist and researcher Carol Dweck recounts an experience that helped lead to her influential work on mindsets. As a young psychologist, Dweck was interested in studying failure and the ways people cope with poor performance. To learn something about this, she gave children a series of puzzles. Each one was harder than the last, and the increasingly difficult tasks were designed to elicit failure. She knew the children’s responses would differ, but she was not expecting any of the youngsters to actually relish the experience of being stumped. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Rather than feeling frustrated and defeated, some of the kids were enlivened by their struggle. She cites one vivid example: “Confronted with the hard puzzles, one ten-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, ‘I love a challenge!’”
This early research was instrumental in Dweck’s subsequent work on fixed and growth mindsets and the impact these two internal attitudes can have in our lives. While her findings are applicable to people of all ages, they are particularly resonant for kids – and for the adults who have the greatest influence on them: parents and educators.
A Tale of Two Mindsets
Dweck began to observe that people of all ages tended to have one of two operating beliefs. The first was what she called a fixed mindset, a belief that one’s capacities are carved in stone, unchanging, and fixed. In this view, people are born with a preset allotment of intelligence, aptitudes, talents, and abilities, and that’s the end of the story. A person is either smart or they’re not. They’re good at math, or they aren’t. They get good grades, or they don’t. People who hold this mindset don’t put much stock in effort or persistence. Instead they tend to think that if someone is smart and talented, success should just happen automatically. For those who firmly hold this mindset, every new experience can be seen as a test of one’s abilities, a chance to prove oneself – or to fail miserably.
A second attitude, the growth mindset, sees much more room for improvement. The growth mindset is focused on learning, on improving, on getting better. If someone does poorly on a math test, it isn’t because they are permanently “bad at math” but simply because they have more to learn. If a child struggles in school, it doesn’t mean they’re stupid or that they “just can’t learn.” It means they need to put in more effort, or effort of a different kind. With the growth mindset, a poor performance is never the end of the story. Rather than an ultimate assessment of one’s ability or potential, it’s simply a snapshot of where a person is at a given moment.
While a growth mindset implies the possibility of ongoing improvement, it does not suggest that there are no limitations on what a person can achieve. Not every child has it in them to become the next Einstein, even if they work very hard. But what this view does imply is that with engagement and effort and sufficient support, all kids can continue to grow and learn and get smarter in a wide range of areas. Just how far any young person can go is unknowable.
Failure: The Growth Mindset v. the Fixed Mindset
All children are born eager to learn and to explore the world. If children were born fearing failure, they would never learn how to walk. But a fixed mindset can take root early. Dweck has seen children as young as four years old say that they prefer doing the same easy puzzle over and over rather than taking on harder ones that might expose them to a challenge they can’t meet.
The fixed and growth mindsets may only be beliefs, but beliefs have the power to shape students’ behavior. The young boy who smacked his lips at the prospect of tackling a tough puzzle wasn’t worried about how well he performed. He was embodying the growth mindset, and he treated the prospect of failure as an opportunity to think and learn. If he fell short, it was okay because it was only a temporary stop on the path toward mastery and success. But for many young people, enthusiasm in the face of difficulty is a foreign idea. Kids who have a predominantly fixed mindset see failure as something to be avoided at all costs. This fear is understandable. If they believe they have a finite amount of intelligence and they can’t improve or get smarter, then failure is scary because it means they just aren’t good enough. When these kids run into obstacles or setbacks, they see them as proof that they just don’t have what it takes.
The implication of these mindsets for children’s learning is profound. A growth mindset is the ideal internal belief system for learning and expanding one’s capacities. On the other hand, holding to a fixed mindset can lead young people to resist hard work. It can stop them from pushing themselves or from taking on new challenges and experiences that move them out of their comfort zones. By fearing failure and preferring to look and feel smart, they can, in actuality, sell themselves short, undermining their growth and achievement.
How Parents Can Foster a Growth Mindset in Their Kids
Because our minds are fundamentally mysterious, experts can’t say with certainty how and why the fixed and growth mindsets take hold. But it’s clear that early experiences of criticism – and even praise – can contribute to a fixed mindset and to children’s fears of not measuring up.
Criticizing children’s failings can leave them feeling insecure and inadequate but praising them can also have unintended consequences. When loving and well-meaning parents and others praise children for getting an A on a test, for finishing their homework quickly, or for drawing a nice picture, some children might hear a hidden message and wonder: What will happen if next time they don’t get an A? Will they still be loved if they don’t do their homework so fast, or if their next picture turns out to be a dud?
Praising their children comes naturally to parents, but Dweck suggests that parents work to avoid directly praising children’s intelligence and talent and instead focus on the work they put in: “We can praise them as much as we want for their growth-oriented process – what they accomplished through practice, study, persistence, and good strategies. And we can ask them about their work in a way that admires and appreciates their efforts and choices.” In addition, she warns against praising children dishonestly. Kids are perceptive, and they knew when adults are being insincere.
Parents can also model the growth mindset for their children by talking about their own errors and mistakes and how they’ve learned from them. Normalizing mistakes and failures can show children that falling short is a natural part of life rather than something to be ashamed of and avoided. The point isn’t simply to glorify mistakes but to point out that taking risks and trying difficult tasks inevitably means things won’t always work out on the first try. Parents can help kids see that this is all a natural part of the learning process rather than something to fear.
Building the Growth Mindset at School
By the time students get to school, they may have already developed a fixed mindset, at least in part. Dweck and others point out that many people’s mindsets are fluid – fixed in one arena and more flexible and growth-oriented in another. But no matter how extensive students’ fixed mindsets are, the good news is the growth mindset can be cultivated and learned. For students (and adults), a fixed mindset isn’t destiny.
Maybe the most important step educators can take is to learn about the growth mindset and then explicitly teach students about it. Talk to them frequently about neuroplasticity and the brain’s capacity to grow. It’s exciting for kids to learn that difficulty and struggle aren’t evidence of their inadequacy but rather signs they’re learning and getting smarter. Several research studies suggest that teaching kids directly about the growth mindset can strengthen their persistence so they do better in school.
In one study, two groups of middle school students were taught an assortment of math study skills. In addition, one of the groups was also taught about the growth mindset, and the brain’s remarkable capacity to learn. Dweck says, “They learned that when they stepped out of their comfort zone to do hard things, and they stuck to them, the neurons in their brains could form new connections, stronger connections, and over time they could get smarter.” This information thrilled the students, and months later when the performance of the two groups was compared, the difference was evident. Unlike the first group, whose math scores had declined, the kids who’d been taught about the growth mindset saw their scores improve. Dweck notes that for many students, learning a growth mindset “transforms the meaning of effort and difficulty. It used to mean they were dumb. Now it means they have a chance to get smarter.”
In addition to teaching it explicitly, teachers can also model the growth mindset through the way they speak. When providing feedback to students, focus on the aspects under their control, such as the strategies they used, and make sure to highlight areas in their work that show progress. Dweck and others emphasize the power of the word yet, which conveys that learning is an ongoing process. When a student says, “I can’t do it,” or “This isn’t right,” help them revise the statement: “I can’t do it yet.” In doing so, you help them persevere, and just as important, you demonstrate your belief in their potential.
An emphasis on process can also guide the work teachers assign. Consider creating assignments that allow students to reflect and improve over time rather than having to get things perfectly the first time. Assign work that allows for growth, reflection, and improvement, such as multiple drafts of papers. Allow students to retake tests or to revise assignments to demonstrate what they’ve learned.
A focus on the growth mindset in education is powerful and can help students persevere in ways they might not have thought possible. But as some point out, a growth mindset is not a cure-all. Changing mindsets alone can’t overcome large-scale inequities, issues of trauma, and other obstacles to learning so many young people face. Nevertheless, helping students cultivate a growth mindset is a worthwhile goal for parents and educators. As we help children embrace discomfort and welcome failure and believe in their own potential, we’re giving them a set of skills that they’ll use for the rest of their lives.
