S02 E07 - Building Growth Mindset for Kids

 

Now that we know all about growth and fixed mindsets, how do we foster this in our children? Let’s learn several steps that help us to grow this mindset within them naturally and raise emotionally intelligent children. We all want our children to grow into capable, kind, and caring human beings. We want them to build resilience and know how to handle situations that will arise for them. All of this can be hugely helped when we intentionally work on growing their mindset.

What we dig into in this episode:

• How to reframe our failures into learning opportunities
• How to praise them in a way that fosters growth
• How to help our kids continuously build this mindset
• How not ALL of these things are needed all the time, but small simple changes over time

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Episode Transcript

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I'm Crystal, a certified life coach and mom of four. In this podcast, we combine radical connection and positive parenting theories with the How-To Life Coaching Tools and Mindset Work to completely transform our relationship with our children.

Join me on my journey, unleash your inner parenting expert, and become the mother you've always wanted to be. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and rate this podcast on Apple, and check out my transformative monthly membership for moms in the show notes.

Episode 7, Building Growth Mindset for Kids.

 

Review of what Growth Mindset is

So, if you listen to the last week's episode, we talked all about Growth Mindset; so, make sure you go and review that. And we obviously, want to do this for us, but we also want to do this for our kids. 

So, I'm just going to review Growth Mindset. Growth Mindset seeks growth, embraces discomfort, expends massive amounts of energy wisely. And so, I kind of defined and explained what Growth Mindset is in the past episode; but it's basically, this inner belief that failure doesn't mean anything about us, that we can just keep going and trying and improving; and we don't let failure stop us. 

We understand that it's part of the journey and part of the process; and that even if we're not born with these innate talents and abilities, that we can grow and change as well. So, that's what Growth Mindset is; and don't we all want that for our children? 

I mean, we want that for us, but we want that even more so for our kids; we just think it would be amazing for them, and we can see how successful it would be as they age. 

 

Five ways to help develop a Growth Mindset in your children

And so, one of the questions that I get often is, how can I help develop this in my children? And so, I've come up with five tips or five ways that you can help develop a Growth Mindset in your children as well. 

 

1. Reframing failure for them

So, number one is reframing failure for them. So, we talked about this last time, reframing failure for us. So, what do we make failure mean? So, often, your kids are going to make failure means something about them as well, just like we do. 

And so, maybe they're having a hard time with a math question; and they're thinking, 'I'm so dumb, I should just stop this, this is so hard, I'm never going to figure this out.' 

And so, first, you kind of have to dig up like, what they're making failure mean about themselves right now. So, you could sit down and have a conversation and say, "What's something you're having a hard time with right now?" 

So, maybe they'll bring, you know, some art project up or something at school; and then just ask them some questions, 'Why is it hard for you? What do you think is going on there?' 

What we're trying to do is kind of dig up those shame-filled thoughts, those fixed mindset thoughts that they have. 

Another way that I've seen this done extraordinarily well is in a conference that I was in through Big Life Journal – if you don't already follow them, definitely go follow them; they're all about Growth Mindset. 

I was doing a conference with them, and what they had the children do – they were teaching the parents, but they had the parents go do it with their children – they had them draw a 'thought monster'. 

And they said, "Everybody has these little negative 'thought monsters' hiding down inside of them, so I want you to draw your monster." So, they would draw or color a picture of a monster. And then you would ask them, "What does your 'thought monster' tell you?" 

And most people's 'thought monster' said something like, 'You're a bad person, you're dumb, you're ugly, you're silly,' you know, all of these things. 

So, there's a few different ways that you can do it based on the age of your child. But basically, you're just trying to uncover those failure and those shame thoughts that they might have about themselves right now. 

Now, as they uncover that and tell you about that, you don't want to say something like, "You are wrong" or "That's not true". We sometimes think that's helpful just to be like, "Well, no, that's not true, you're awesome," right? 

But we don't want them to feel like their thoughts aren't valid, and that we're just dismissing what they're thinking and what they're feeling, because it's really true to them; and we want to be empathetic to that. 

And so, instead, what we can do is just say, "Okay, what do you make it mean when I fail? Like, when you see me fail or when you see your best friend fail?" Or maybe you can talk about a famous person in history, "What happens when they fail? What do you think about that?" 

And then, once you have that conversation, you can say, "Okay, so what do you think failure means? Why is failure perfect? Why could failure actually be awesome?" And then, just get their answers from that. 

So, I do this with the teens and the tweens that I teach. And so, they'll immediately say things like, "Well, we have to fail. There would be no growth, if we didn't fail. There would be no technology and innovation if we didn't allow ourselves to fail." 

So, that's another question you could ask them too, like, what wouldn't we have right now that we do have, if people stopped when they failed – if people made failure mean that about them?

And also, just acknowledging like, "These are thoughts, and they seem very true; and I have these same thoughts too. I'm just like you, all humans are, we all think this; this is totally normal, and failure is totally normal." And having that conversation with them to kind of help them reframe failure. 

In fact, I've seen a PDF printout specifically about Reframing Failure from Big Life Journal - if you're not already on their weekly email list, you have to go on there; it's awesome. 

But I remember getting one in my email that said, it was something about reframing failure-- And so, you wrote down all of the different failures that you've had, or that you can remember in the last little while; and then you kind of reframed them, how else could I look at this? 

So, basically, you're shifting your story about it, right? We talk a lot about shifting stories. So, basically, you're shifting your story about that failure – what other story could I have about this same failure? 

I remember reading, I think it was in Carol Dweck’s Mindset: Psychology book. And she said that there was a bunch of scientists and they decided to come up with this like book of failures; and they shared this book of failures. 

So, they were kind of celebrating their failures, and talking about their failures. And as this happened, they were actually able to develop a lot more ideas from each other, and learn from each other's failures. 

Whereas before, they just felt like they couldn't talk about the fact that they were failing; but they're scientists, they're supposed to be failing – and they were feeling like something was wrong there. 

And so, kind of bringing it out into the open, just made it so much more helpful. And don't quote me, it might not have been in her book; it could have been in a Brené Brown book because she talks a lot about that as well. 

So, number #1, help them reframe the failure. 

 

2. Praise them differently

Number #2 is to praise them differently. So, I want you to think about how you praise your child right now. They come and bring you a project that they've worked on and you say, "That's amazing. That looks lovely. Good job, good work." 

What we're doing is we're praising the end-product, and almost all of us do this all the time. We often just skip right to praising the end-product, which kind of intrinsically teaches them that it's the end-product that matters; it's the solution to the math problem, it's getting that solution right that matters. 

It's not the struggle that they went through and the work that they went through. So, instead of praising the end-goal, we can praise the process; and maybe not even praise, just talk about the process. So, they give you a coloring--  

This happens to my seven-year-old, at the time, he loves to draw and he loves to color. So, he'll come and bring it to me; and I automatically want to go, 'Good job, that's so pretty, I love it.' And I'm like, 'Okay, no. Okay, wait, what can I-- What can I say instead here?' 

So, these are what I'm trying to say. It's definitely a process for me too, because it's such a change from what my natural go-to response is. And so, I'll say things instead, like, "Tell me about the colors in this picture. Tell me what you were thinking when you drew this part. Was there anything here that was hard for you, that was a struggle? What do you think about this? What did you feel as you were going through it? How long did it take you?" 

You could just like ask them about the process, really get them to open up about the process; and you can even say things like, "Oh, I like that you use so many different colors." But then, also, ask like, "Tell me about all the different colors. What made you choose this blue and this yellow and this orange?" 

And even with a math problem, they come up with the solution; and the solution is right and be like, "Okay, tell me about this solution. How did you get to this solution? What were you thinking? Was it hard? Was it easy? Did you learn anything through the process?" 

And really focusing on the process instead of the end-result will really help them see that it's not the product that matters, but it's the process that matters. All right. 

 

3. Helping them try new things

Number #3, helping them try new things. Now, this is so difficult. We all have kind of these comfort zones. 

So, our comfort zone would be the TV shows that we watch right now, the friends that we hang out with right now, the words that we say, the books that we read, the places that we like to go for fun, the foods that we eat. 

We're all kind of stuck in this comfort-zone bubble that we're used to. It's just, things are same old, same old; and we just keep going on, and our kids are the same. 

Fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears. In fact, I was just getting coached on this the other day; and she was reading somewhere – I can't quote it because she told me about it – but she said that death and public speaking are two of the top three fears that we have as people. 

But this person was telling them that in fact, the fear of the unknown is number one, even more so than death and public speaking, is the fear of the unknown. And doesn't that seem true to you? It's like that anticipation. Like you don't know if it's going to be hard, you don't know if it's going to be difficult, you don't know if it's going to hurt a lot when somebody does something. Right? 

And so, there's all these little things that we anticipate; and we don't like that feeling because that feeling really is just discomfort. That anticipation is discomfort in our body, and our mind is not used to feeling that discomfort. 

So, I just want you to think about your children, and what's kind of in their zone of comfort? Now, you don't want to go from their zone of comfort all the way out to like a completely far-out comfort zone, right? 

And be like, 'We're going to try this crazy food, and we're going to go on this crazy trip, and we're going to read all these bizarre books that we've never read before and learn a new language.' Like we just want to start small. 

With everything here, it's just like the tiny, small little efforts, they're going to make the biggest difference. So, think about their zone of comfort, and just think about how you can just go one step out of that zone of comfort. 

So, maybe they don't mind carrots, but they don't like cucumbers. And you could just be like, "Here's a cucumber – let's just lick it, or look at it, or smell it, or, you know, interact with it, or something." And maybe it's not something bizarre like, "Here, eat a giant squid." It's just like some tiny little step.

 

Other ways to push yourself out of the comfort zone

Other ways to kind of push yourself out of that comfort zone are to; 

 

(a) Read different books, watch a different kind of movie, or go on a walk in a different location

maybe read different books that you're not used to reading, or watch a different kind of movie than you typically watch, or go on a walk in a different location than your typical walk that you go every day. 

There's lots of ways to make this pushing out of your comfort zone, easy for them – because just like adults, they are also going to have that fear of the unknown; they're also going to have that anticipation. 

So, we want to just kind of help them to push themselves out of their comfort zone and to try new things, but not a giant push, right? We're not just tossing them off the cliff into the unknown abyss; we're just kind of gently guiding them through. 

 

(b) The dare of the day

Another way to do this is called 'the dare of the day'. And so, 'dare of the day' is like, I sit down and actually talk to my kids about this process. And I'm like, 'Okay, we're all going to just try one dare. It can be anything that's uncomfortable; it doesn't have to be huge.' 

So, I'm going to tell you what mine was. I moved to this town and I'm living out of town; and we'd drive on a lot of gravel roads, and people would always wave at me – like, all the time. And I was used to living in a bigger city; nobody waves, unless they know who you are, or think they know who you are. 

So, I kept getting freaked out about it. I was like, 'Do they know me? Do I know them? Should I wave back? I don't know.' And like, I was having this-- Like, I was making it such a big deal; it totally wasn't a big deal. 

Anyways, it was out of my comfort zone to wave back; I don't know why, but it was – that was out of my comfort zone. So, one of the 'dare of the days' that I decided to give myself was that I was just going to wave back. 

In fact, sometimes I even wave before people wave at me; I know, bizarre. And I don't know these people; I mean, we just moved here, right? We had known hardly anybody when this had happened. Anyways, so that was something for me that was pushing myself out of my comfort zone. 

So, you can talk to your teens and tweens; and you can ask them things like, what's something that would be a little bit uncomfortable? 'Maybe it's talking to a new kid at school, maybe it's taking a new class that you're not used to. Maybe all of your friends are taking, you know, Shop class, and you're going to take Outdoor Ed. or something like that.'

Just something small to kind of help push them out of their comfort zone, and a 'dare of the day' is a really great way to do that. Just picking one thing every single day that you can do. And it can be a different thing or can it be the same thing over the course of the week; and just really getting yourself out there, and getting used to that discomfort.

 

(c) Setting and achieving goals

Number #3 is setting and achieving goals. So, goals can seem really overwhelming when we look at the end-result. So, maybe we want to run a half-marathon; and we look at the end-result of that, and we're like, but we don't run at all. And so, it seems way too overwhelming. 

And so, maybe we'll start for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks, and then we give up. And so, we want to really help and encourage, and kind of coach them through this as well. So, we want to help them come up with a goal, first of all. 

It might be hard for them to come up with a goal, so we can talk about goals that we've had in the past or goals that we think would be interesting and exciting; and kind of have a conversation about goals. 

Allow them to pick one, but make sure that it's not like way too out there and way too crazy; we don't want it to be too much of a stretch when they're first learning how to set goals. 

And then, you're going to break it down step by step for them, and help guide them through it. So, just like we would do for ourselves, if we don't have a specific way that we're going to achieve that goal, then we won't do it. 

So, I'm going to give you a little example about my kids. My son decided that he wanted to kind of get caught up in math. And so, we do a lot of self-directed learning around here. So, math is going to look a little bit different than it is going to for a lot of kids. 

And so, he decided, he was in grade nine and he was like, 'You know what? I want to catch up to grade nine math,' which was a huge goal for him because we hadn't done a ton of, you know, curriculum that was very specific to our area, when it comes to math. 

So, I kind of thought it was going to take a long time, but what we decided to do was to get him a tutor to work with him once a week. And then, every single day he would do some math; and he broke it down to 15 minutes a day, or 30 minutes a day with some small amount. 

But within a semester, he was able to catch up from being really, really far behind, just from keeping up with these small little tiny, simple things. He decided later on, he wanted to learn English more; I didn't even tell him this. 

He just said, "You know what I think? I'm just feeling like I really need to work more on English and, you know, writing essays and stuff like that. Can you help me with that?" So, I helped him kind of pick a goal. We decided to do one report or essay kind of a thing. 

Every month, we talked to his homeschooling facilitator about it. So, she was going to help him as well. And we kind of just got this routine in the schedule going so that he could achieve that goal. 

So, those are a couple of examples of goals that have worked for my kids as well. So, just to help them kind of pick a goal, encourage them – even if they fail, it's totally fine. Right? Go back to that Reframing Failure step. It's still learning even if we're not able to achieve that goal or in the time that we had decided. 

 

4. Helping them notice all the people around them that support them

Number #4 is helping them notice all the people around them that support them. 

What happens is when we're feeling discouraged or we're struggling – which often happens when we're trying to achieve a goal or we're really stuck in that fixed mindset or that shame – we don't feel like anybody arounds us supports us or loves us. 

We're kind of in this like deep dark hole; and we feel like we're the only ones in this deep dark hole, and nobody's around us. And so, we want to help them become more emotionally resilient. 

Emotional resilience comes a lot from having this mindset of support, feeling like they're loved and connected and attached to more people and strongly to people.

 

(i) Big Life Journal principle: A tree

So, I remember another principal. I know I'm talking about Big Life principles all the time, Big Life Journal, but one of the principles was a tree. And so, it was an image of a tree. 

And you wrote down in the roots, all of the different people that love and support you – grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends. You would write down their specific names, and you had all these roots. 

And then up in the branches were like difficult things like struggles that might come up. Like maybe you fail a test at school or you have a hard time with your friend or whatever, all these little things like trying new things. And just kind of explaining to them like; these roots can help you so that when you go through those struggles, these roots are always going to be there for you. 

 

(ii) Meditation

Another way that you can teach this is through meditation. So, you could have them like put their feet flat on the ground and you could have them just close their eyes and breathe; and they don't have to sit and be calm the whole time. 

Oftentimes, when we do meditations or visualizations with our kids, we feel like it should look like it does with us, right, where we're sitting and we're calm and relaxed, but it doesn't, and that's fine. 

So, putting their feet flat on the ground, closing their eyes, and just visualizing all of the people around them that support them. So, even if they're not physically in their presence; who supports you, who are your friends and your family and your loved ones, and do they support you? 

And imagine them standing on the ground, and imagine the support and strength that's coming through the ground and pushing up through the roots – like a tree up into your legs and supporting you as well. 

So, there's a few different ways that you can do this; but basically, we just want to help build that resiliency through helping them feel supported and loved and connected and attached through a lot of people. All right. 

 

5. Teach them how to handle big emotions

Number #5, we want to teach them how to handle big emotions. And by handling, I mean, that it's okay. Basically, I just mean we want them to know that big emotions are normal and okay; and that they'll happen all the time, and that that's totally fine. 

So, allowing them to kind of go through that process and feel those big feelings and not shaming them for the feelings that they're having and helping them notice like, 'We all feel that way.' 

'I sometimes feel super angry. I sometimes feel rage. I sometimes feel deep sadness and discouragement and despair. I feel all those feelings too, and this is what it feels like in my body. What does it feel like for you?' 

Obviously, when they're in that mode, they're not necessarily going to be able to talk logically about it, but just helping them know that handling big emotions really just means allowing those big emotions – and that those big emotions are okay. And as our children realize that more and more and more, the more accepting they will be of their own emotions. 

And really, this process goes all back down to us, right? And as we understand that handling our own emotions is okay, and that we can do that, we're going to be able to model that as well. 

 

So, you don't have to work on all these five things at one time, just pick one thing to work on right now; come back and choose something else later. Maybe you work on one thing for a while and you're like, 'Oh, this is going really well. Let's come back to this episode, listen to it again, what can we do?' Let's do one of the other five things. 

And modeling this behavior will be more important than anything else. Doing this on yourself will be more important than anything else, so that then we can be that strength for our children as well; and teach them through example. 

So, good luck building that Growth Mindset for you and for your kids. And like I said in the past, I do have a digital course called Your Superpower Brain – if you have a teenager or tweenager, that would be interested in that. 

And all of these skills that I'm talking about is what we work on in my monthly program for moms. And yes, we do have non-moms; you do not have to be a mom to be in that course. But it's an amazing program to be in, so make sure you check that out in the show notes as well. 

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure that you give it Five Stars on Apple, and check out my monthly membership for moms in the show notes.