The Mind of Parenting Success
We all want to raise children to have a zeal for life, willing to take challenges and go after their dreams. As we watch our kids continue to grow, sometimes we recognize one is more timid, reserved, cautious and less likely to be bold. Although personality and temperament may play a part in your child’s behavior, you also play a huge role in helping to shape your child’s mind of success.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford
Modern psychology has some new buzz words that have grown from the research of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. After many years of working with clients, she noticed the success and failure of these men and women seemed to depend mainly on their mindset. Some had what she called a “fixed” mindset. This means they believed that they had been given all of their gifts, talents and intelligence at birth. This outlook contrasts with the “growth” mindset, the belief that the gifts, talents and intelligence you were given at birth are just the starting point and each one of these areas can be grown and honed.
So what does this mean to parents? It means that you can help shape the thinking patterns of your children to reach for the stars instead of settling for the dust.
How do you do this? Teach your kids to embrace failure.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Michael Jordan
It’s important for children to understand that failing at something doesn’t make them a failure. Much as a parent makes the distinction during a time of discipline between disapproving of a child’s actions and still loving the child, effective parenting highlights that, when it comes to failure, no link exists between a child’s failed attempt and that child’s worth.
Failure is actually a building block to success. Your child needs to understand that most people do not succeed the first time they try something. As parents, we really need to encourage the effort, not the result. When we give praise for their efforts, children are more likely to try something new or try something again, a growth mindset. If we only praise a successful result, children can become intimidated by trying something new. They begin to equate their worth to their success, so they only venture to do what they know they’ll succeed at.
“This illustrates the key difference between the two mindsets,” Dweck says. “For those with a growth mindset, personal success is when you work your hardest to become your best, whereas for those with a fixed mindset, success is about establishing their superiority, pure and simple. Being that somebody who is worthier than the nobodies. For the latter, setbacks are a sentence and a label. For the former, they’re motivating, informative input — a wakeup call.”
All children, and parents, need to remember that life is a process of learning new things, not just perfecting what you know. It’s okay to not have all the answers; success comes from continuing to figure them out.
“There is a difference between not knowing and not knowing yet.” ~Sheila Tobias
It’s such a simple word, but “yet” opens the door to possibility. It opens the door to hope. Notice the difference between “I can’t do this!” and “I can’t do this yet.” Yet not only gives kids permission to not know how to do something, but it encourages them to go on the journey of learning how to do it. It invites more failure—learning—without the despair of thinking they will never figure it out.
We all want our children to be fearless in their approach to life. We want them to reach for success. As circumstances, both negative and positive, begin to impact our children, it’s important to remember we are not powerless in how that affects our kids. Failure is a step on the road to success. Success is a product of hard work, not a destination. Learning is the ultimate goal, no matter what age you are.
Christian Barnes lives in Kansas City with her husband and two nearly grown sons. She's fascinated by how children think and learn and enjoys sharing any information she's gathered with others.