Parenting with a Growth Mindset

Educators know that the concept of growth mindset is slowly but thankfully creeping its way into teaching practice across the country.  I am quite personally fond of this approach because of my own personal experiences and now that I have enough professional experience, I am re-examining what I think is best for kids.  Take a look at the illustration below.

For many years I have seen the fixed mindset in action, not only on the part of students but also their parents.  If a student fails a class, the response typically is that they are just not good at that.  Students of poverty see their condition as a road block to all “middle-class” success or movement.  I’m certainly glad did not do that or who knows who would be writing this post.  What if we parented this way?  What if we stop saying, “well I wasn’t good at math either.”  Let replace the language we use and start parenting with a growth mindset.

I have a 13 year old daughter that I am very proud of.  Thanks to my social mobility, she has middle-class problems at times.  She has played softball since she was four years old and yes, for many of those years I was her coach.  She loves the game but runs into roadblocks.  She is not super physically talented but she likes to learn.  She recently took up pitching again.  She has been going to weekly lessons to unlearn old ways and learn new ones to help her be successful.  This year has presented opportunities to pitch and she is really enjoying it, but the last two games she has pitched really didn’t go her way. 

The truth is, that I could care less if she wins or loses her games (people that know me personally are surely thinking I am a liar right now).  I care about the process she takes to get there.  We had a rough game last night but the conversation after the game is what was special.  I asked her what she did right tonight.  She quickly replied, “nothing.”  So I quickly corrected her and explained what she did do very well.  We discussed what happened that was out of our control.  I let her tell me what fixes she had to make in the game.  I made her be part of her own growth.  We didn’t lament over the strike zone (we could have though) or what the coach did or didn’t do.  We talked about little victories and what her next opportunity would be like.

This is a micro example of parenting with a growth mindset.  I like to help her with her math homework.  I was not a good math student, but I parent with a growth mindset.  She is not allowed to bring me a blank answer and ask for help.  She must present me with an attempt.  I want her to fail forward towards the goal.  I don’t care if it is wrong when she brings it to me.  I care about walking her back through her process.  A lot of times we don’t’ get it right and leave it up to the teacher for help.  That’s okay because I do not want her to create roadblocks for herself and then create excuses.  I want her to be able to say, “I’m not good at that yet, but I will be.”

Imagine what the possibilities are for kids are if we teach and parent with a growth mindset.  The key to creating great communities lies in our hands.  If we use these critical years to develop a mindset for our learners, they will become adults with a growth mindset.  It is a cycle that is worth initiating as we parent these kids in a world that is growing in complexity and challenges.