Growth Mindset Carol Dweck Ph.D Before we begin please take some time to consider your own Mindset through responding to the statements on the sheet.

“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.” – Carol Dweck

Fixed Mindset I believe my intelligence is fixed. I was born clever/I was not born very clever I don’t like challenge. I don’t want to risk looking stupid. I am vulnerable. I like easy performance goals and being told I have done well. I have low aspirations. I react to failure by switching off, getting cross and avoiding the issue. I have low self- esteem.

Growth Mindset I believe my intelligence is not fixed. The intelligence can be improved through effort and hard work. I thrive on challenge. I throw myself into difficult tasks. I am self confident. I react to failure by trying harder. I am self reflective. I have high aspirations. I have learning goals. I like feed back on my performance so I can improve.

“When we talk about intelligence, we do not mean the ability to get a good score on a certain kind of test, or even the ability to do well in school; these are at best only indicators of something larger, deeper and far more important. By intelligence we mean a style of life, a way of behaving in various situations, and particularly in new, strange, and perplexing situations. The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.” John Holt: How Children Fail

1.Have daily learning discussions. At dinner, in the car or at bedtime take time for both the kids and parents to share the answers to these types of questions: “What did you learn today?” (I LOVE this – so much better than “How was your day?”) “What mistake did you make that taught you something new? (Good Mistakes!) “What did you have to work hard at today?” (Learning should be hard if not we are not learning anything new.) ‘ It’s really important’, says Dweck ‘that I share what I learned, too. This models for kids that I learn new things every day, even learning from failures.’ When children share, you can reply like this: “You certainly did work hard today.” “I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it right.” “Everyone learns in a different way. Let’s keep trying to find the way that works for you.” (These are direct quotes from Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.) 5 ways we can develop a Growth Mindset in our children.

2. Give feedback on process only. Praise effortPraise effort, persistence, strategies, seeking challenges, setting goals, planning, or using creative strategies. Don’t praise personal abilities like being clever, fast or artistic. This kind of praise actually can lead to a loss of confidence as children won’t be good at everything. They’ll doubt their ability to be good at something that is initially difficult.lead to a loss of confidence Salmon Khan wrote: that he will never tell his son he’s intelligent for this very reason. He shares, “Between the deep body of research on the field of learning mindsets and this personal experience with my son, I am more convinced than ever that mindsets toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach.” player_embedded Recent research has proven that……praise on its own does not raise achievement and that praising pupils’ intelligence can actually encourage them to stick to easy tasks that will make them look clever. In a way, it seems only logical to assume that students who have confidence in their intelligence – who clearly believe they are smart – would have nothing to fear from challenge. But many of the most confident individuals do not want their intelligence too stringently tested, and their high confidence is all too quickly shaken when they are confronted with difficulty. (Henderson & Dweck, 1990; Dweck & Lin, 1998)

3. Do you know brains can grow? Explain to children how the brain can grow stronger and that intelligence can improve throughout your life. Intelligence is not fixed. It’s changeable. This is called brain plasticity.brain can grow stronger brain plasticity What’s more, learning CHANGES our brains. Children need to know this is possible.learning CHANGES our brains Growing our brains! (Mojo) How the brain works!

4. Encourage risk, failing, and learning from mistakes. Good Mistakes! Now is the time to let our children take risk and fail. Failure teaches our children important life lessons. For one, it’s how they learn to be resilient. But we often want to prevent our children from failing, from feeling upset or sad. Don’t. We must let our children fail now so that they can strengthen their growth mindset muscles. If we don’t, they will be adults with no perseverance, with no belief in their abilities to work hard and succeed. Be compassionate and concerned but not enmeshed (entangled). Let’s keep each other accountable on this. This is hard but so important.

5. Encourage and model positive self talk. Finally, change our words to change our mindset. Our self talk is where it all starts to shift.

Imagine you have been given an envelope Inside this envelope is a magic Smartie. If you eat this magic Smartie, you will always find tasks that you take on easy. Take a moment to think about this, then decide what you want to do. A - Eat the Smartie…. B - Leave the Smartie in the envelope…..

What are the consequences for you? Would you get the satisfaction from a job well done? What would you learn along the way? What would you learn about yourself along the way? What would you learn about others along the way? How would it help you build friendships and relationships? What if everybody took a magic Smartie? What if only a few people took a magic Smartie?