Parenting is difficult unless…
I have read a book that is called “Mindset” by Carol S. Dweck, which explains the four most important aspects of life. I was intrigued by the section on parenting in this book. So I decided to capture what it is all about in words as concise as possible. What I have observed is that what kind of person do you expect to become your child as a parent is somehow correlated to how you praise your children. I mean that you as a parent have the power to navigate your children into successful and happy or unfortunate and insecure. Most parents don’t know how they affect negatively a state of a child by giving a compliment and criticizing. The book shows word has the power of life and death. I highlighted what seems most important to me from it.
There is a huge gap between growth-mindset parents and fixed-mindset parents. Fixed mindset parent is always judging and criticizing their children by their mistakes and comparing them to their classmates and friends. They always send fixed-mindset messages to their children. Even though they think what I do and tell is for the sake of them, unaware of what it meant to a child. It starts by paying a compliment when it comes to studying. If a child gets a good grade on an exam, they say you are smart, you got an A even without studying. I am proud of you. If a child wins a chess competition, they say you are brilliant, you have a talent that most kids don’t have. But in reality, how it sounds to kids is that if you don’t learn something quickly, you aren’t smart. If you don’t get a good grade, you are stupid. If you do not win a competition, they do not think I am brilliant. So in this action, kids easily label themselves as stupid. When parents praise their children for how smart they are on acing an exam in school, they become reluctant to challenge new and different things. Because they think difficult tasks could expose them to not that smart. That means they are considered deficient. If success means they are smart, a failure means they are dumb. Also, teachers send fixed-mindset messages to students in a different form, for example, in a maths lesson, the teacher teaching Albert Einstein was a genius man. He discovered important formulas that proved his intelligence that makes them reach a conclusion that some people born smart in maths and it is easy for them to discover because they are genius. The rest of them is you.
If success means they are smart, a failure means they are dumb.
So that poses the question that should not we praise our children? the answer is No. Parent should praise their children as much as they could for the growth-oriented mindset. Children love praise, especially what they have done. But only growth-mindset parents can do it with the right dose. How they handle it well? it is simple. They praise achievement and how much effort their children put in, not personality attributes and intelligence. If a child got an A on an exam, they would say I like the effort you put into improving noticeably day by day. If a child tried his best but could not get the result he wanted, they would say everyone has a different way of learning curves. Let’s keep trying to find the way that works for you. As I mentioned, do not judge their personality and intelligence instead of teaching them. Once parents ingrain a growth mindset in their trait, abound between parent and child can consolidate for the effectiveness of growth mindset.
They praise achievement and how much effort their children put in, not personality attributes and intelligence.
Although parents use growth-oriented praise with their children, they tend to make a mistake which is the way they talk about others. When children hear how their parents talk about other kids as genius, smart, and pig-headed, It turns into a fixed mindset and no wonder am I next? On top of that, it applies to a teacher as well. Rather than leaving students in a fixed mindset saying Albert Einstein is genius and god of discovery, they should tell them he became passionate about maths and ended up making great discoveries. This conveys a message that we can achieve a goal if we have passion and perseverance.
At the end of it, I realized that parenting is not an easy job for me(us). Raising a child a life-long process. It is not as easy as to make a child, but it is much harder than that and a perpetuating process. Before I read this section of the book, I thought that I am gonna read at least 10 books about parenting. But now it highlights the most important parts of parenting. Everyone does not need to become a mathematician but becomes a parent.
