What is the key to determining the fate of a child?

The misunderstood growth mindset. Some people say that character determines destiny, and some say that birth determines class. What is the real key to determining a child\’s future success? Carol Dweck, a professor of behavioral psychology at Stanford University, spent nearly 40 years trying to find the answer. In 1978, she launched a study in which she recruited a group of children and created a series of increasingly difficult puzzles. Soon, the group of children formed two types. The first type of child, after trying to no avail, starts to blame themselves, \”I\’m getting more and more confused.\” \”My memory has always been bad.\” As the difficulty of the puzzle continues to increase, they will say, \”It\’s not fun anymore.\” .\” Finally, these children couldn\’t stand it anymore, and they insisted: \”I give up.\” Some were even so frustrated that they threw the puzzle on the ground. The second kind of children are completely opposite to them. Not only can they accept failure calmly, they even like failure very much. When the puzzle gets harder, instead of blaming themselves, they say, \”I like to be challenged.\” \”The harder the problem gets, the harder I should try.\” When the problem gets harder, , they did not complain that the game was not fun. On the contrary, they also gave themselves very positive psychological hints, saying: \”I am almost able to make it.\” \”I have successfully made it before, and I can do it again.\” Success once.\” In the nearly 40 years since then, Dweck has been demonstrating the relationship between different thinking patterns and success or failure, and finally discovered: thinking determines destiny. Children with a \”Growth Mindset\” will confidently believe that they can overcome difficulties when encountering challenges. Therefore, they will become more courageous as they fight and eventually succeed. Children with a \”Fixed Mindset\” are usually at a loss, thinking that they are not capable enough or lucky enough, and eventually embark on a completely different path to mediocrity. This conclusion has been evaluated by the Atlantic Monthly and other media as \”a breath of fresh air in an exam-driven society.\” What does it mean? Today, children\’s inner driving force has been ignored for too long, and this is even more true as they advance to higher grades. Dweck\’s conclusion encourages children to look back and focus on their own learning mentality and motivation. Therefore, after Dweck\’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success was published, it quickly sold well around the world, and many parents and teachers began to learn from it. But slowly, Dweck discovered that the growth mindset that many people understand is actually superficial, or even completely against the principles. She calls this misunderstanding \”False Growth Mindset\”. This misunderstanding will eventually mislead the direction of children\’s progress, making them more passive the harder they work. Misconception: All children\’s efforts should be praised. Dweck encourages us to praise the \”process\” of children\’s learning – such as effort, strategy, focus and persistence, etc., and to relate these factors to children\’s daily performance and learning process, so that It can effectively stimulate children to develop a growth mindset, which in turnto promote children’s learning. But observing the practices of many teachers, Dweck found that they mistakenly equate \”stimulating children\’s growth mindset\” with \”praising children for their hard work.\” This can easily lead to a misunderstanding – even if a child has studied hard for a long time. Even if there is no result for a long time, the teacher will still affirm him and even praise him. \”It doesn\’t matter, you have worked very hard.\” \”You are so diligent, you will definitely succeed!\” This is like giving a \”consolation prize\” to this child who has always failed in his studies. In fact, it is very dangerous. Because it will mislead those who most need to develop their own learning abilities and continue their own ineffective efforts. Many people believe that diligence is a virtue. As long as the child works hard, don\’t care too much whether he or she succeeds. However, Dweck\’s view is exactly the opposite: \”Not all efforts are worthy of praise unless they bring results.\” And this must be done to ensure success. Children get this clearly and early on. \”Of course we need to protect our children\’s self-confidence, but we also need to tell the truth to them.\” Dweck hopes that parents and teachers will admit that blindly affirming children\’s efforts when their learning is inefficient is likely to make children become more passive the harder they work. Rather than comforting children, we should give them a sense of urgency and work with them to find learning strategies that are more suitable for them. In fact, all the teachers she came into contact with during the research who were good at cultivating children\’s growth mindset spent their main energy on helping children explore strategies and letting children see how correct strategies can bring success. Tell kids that when they get stuck, they have to do more than just try harder and try harder. Because any effort without strategy is actually a waste of time. Misunderstanding 2: Let children believe that \”I can do it if I want to.\” \”Growth mindset\” tells us that everyone should believe that they can overcome everything at any time, but Dweck has a reminder that when we guide children to build self-confidence, we need to Help children clarify the premise, \”Yes, as long as you want to, you can do it, but the premise is that you have the knowledge, skills, strategies and resources.\” We are all helping children set a higher goal, pursue, and However, for those who really understand education, after setting this goal, everything has just begun – next, they will spend a lot of energy to help their children find a specific path to achieve this goal, rather than writing a blank check. Many people think it’s a bit cruel to tell children “you can’t do it just because you think it”, and worry that this will destroy their children’s self-confidence. In fact, when difficulties come and failures come, what really affects whether children can cope with them confidently is the parents’ attitude towards them. Description of difficulty or failure. If parents are always eager to reassure their children and say, \”Not everyone is good at math, don\’t worry, you are good at other things,\” etc., as enlightenment, the children will slowly become people with a \”fixed mindset\” , thinking, \”Okay, this is what I\’m not good at. I don\’t need to care too much.\” But if parents can show the attitude of \”These difficulties are expected,\” and ask, \”Okay, then this What problem does this incident reflect? What should we do next to solve this problem?What\’s the problem? Do we need to talk to the teacher, maybe he has better advice? \”In this way, children can understand, \”Oh, these abilities can all be cultivated. As long as appropriate methods are found, what level has been achieved in a certain aspect. \” Misunderstanding 3: You have a fixed mindset and I have a growth mindset. In communicating with teachers around the world, Dweck also discovered a phenomenon: when children are ineffective in learning, some adults attribute it to the fact that the child is dragged down by a \”fixed mindset.\” . This is not difficult to understand. Rather than admitting that there is a problem with your own education and teaching methods, adults will feel better if they think this way, as if the problem is not theirs and it is easier to solve. But they ignore that, first of all, the thinking model is only the key factor , not all factors. Secondly, it is also the responsibility of an educator to create a space that can stimulate children\’s growth thinking. In this space, children can try to get rid of their \”fixed thinking\” and find ways to develop their own abilities. The real method. Moreover, a fact that most people ignore is that each of us has a mixed personality-sometimes, we are full of confidence and think about problems with a growth mindset, and sometimes we become a fixed mindset. Thinking personality, it depends on what the challenge is that we face – challenges, mistakes, failures, and even criticism can affect our judgment of our abilities, such as when we try a new working method and it doesn’t work. When we cannot encourage a child to fall in love with learning, when we compare ourselves to an experienced educator…our training of ourselves and the guidance of our children only allow us to have more growth-minded thinking cells. Some, thus making it our main thinking mode. \”I have seen many teachers, and not long after hearing about this thinking model, I decided that I have a growth mindset personality. \”In fact, Dweck once wrote in an article, \”In fact, this kind of training needs to last for a long period of time, sometimes even a lifetime. \”And if we want to get more growth mindset, we have to face the fixed mindset – this is the suggestion of Dweck\’s Australian colleague Susan Mackie. She suggested that we take a few weeks to make an observation about ourselves, and whenever we When you fall into a fixed mindset, record the reasons for it. Don’t rush to make any judgments or want to get out of it. Just observe. After a period of time, summarize the reasons – is it because we don’t like to try new things? Or is it because we don’t like to try new things? Amplifying the possible impact of change and causing anxiety?… Then give a name to the psychological trigger that affects us most often. Next time it appears again, we will talk to this psychological trigger and accept it. , let it help us when we challenge new goals, instead of becoming a stumbling block. Take a look at the three suggestions for amplifying growth thinking. What Dweck wants to remind us is actually two sentences: Growth thinking is not blindly confident, strategic. Efforts are commendable. Everyone has a mixed personality, and the only thing we can do is to amplify our growth mindset. 3 suggestions to help you and your children amplify your growth mindset. First, for your childrenCreate an \”achievement folder\”, which is a student motivation method used by many American middle schools, allowing students to collect their relevant \”achievements\” in stages – there is often a painting on the cover of the folder, which is the student himself Drawing to express the goal you most want to achieve. These achievements must be a specific progress, such as truly mastering a difficult knowledge point, completing a goal that was originally thought to be unachievable, etc. Update it every day as much as possible and review it after a period of time. It will not only help the child summarize the reasons for his achievements, but also awaken more growth-oriented thinking in the child and perform better in the next longer period of time. Second, let the child establish a \”growth evaluation system\” and list all the conditions that the child needs to achieve before achieving the goal. This can be a diary or a learning list to ensure multi-dimensional management of learning progress. This chart allows students to see their strengths and weaknesses more clearly and allows adults to provide additional guidance and feedback where necessary. Third, when evaluating your child\’s performance, use \”it\’s not working right now\” instead of \”it\’s just not working\”. In a high school in Chicago, students must pass a series of course assessments before graduation. If they fail to pass a certain course, the grade will be \”not yet\” (not yet passed). Just imagine, if the grade is \”failed\” (failed), the student will think: \”I failed, it\’s over.\” If it is replaced with \”not yet\”, the child will understand, \”Learning does not end here, and you should continue to work hard. .\” So, if one day your child tells you dejectedly, \”I can\’t learn math well,\” you can answer him, \”No, you just haven\’t learned math well yet.\”