Tools to Help Children Develop a Growth Mindset

We’ve written a lot about the Growth Mindset in Education and why it is important for helping children to do well in school. Part of helping children develop their growth mindsets is helping them understand how their brains work and what the growth mindset is all about. So here are some terrific resources that speak to children…

Grit: the Power of Passion & Perseverance

In every article I have read about the secret to success, it always comes down to this – to truly be successful, we need more than just brainpower. To be more specific, we need some brains – Malcolm Gladwell puts that figure somewhere around an IQ of 120 – and then we need something extra.

What’s the Real Growth Mindset in Education

I have been following the work of Carol Dweck since I first read about her on New Scientist way back in 2008. A lot has happened since then, and we have learned a lot more about the Growth Mindset so I felt it was about time for a re-cap. Part of reviewing material after a period of time has elapsed is the

Parenting with a Growth Mindset

I wanted to put this out there because I feel that sometimes we fall into that trap of needing to create the perfect portrait of the happy family and anything that mars that image is a sign of failure for us as parents. With social media often only showing the best face of our families, we sometimes forget

Why Some Children Struggle with the Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck’s work on mindsets was introduced to me when my first son was about 18 months old and I have been passionate about it ever since because it really resonated with me. Growing up, I was labelled a “smart kid” and yet I never felt smart. Most of the time, I felt the fraud because being smart

Children Praised for Being Smart Do Poorly at School

I have written about Carol Dweck’s work, growth mindsets and grit in previous posts, but I felt a need to revisit this topic after a recent event. G1 was a precocious child and he often invited a lot “smart” praise. The biggest offenders were relatives who would praise him just for breathing. During a recent encounter when G1 was

Parenting: Adversity Breeds Success

I love movies about sports. They’re always really uplifting and there is so much to be learned from the experiences of the players. These are the kind of movies that provide plenty of talking points you can raise with your children… We watched another movie about baseball recently – MoneyBall. It is the story of Billy

Mindset Lessons from Star Wars

Star Wars is one of Aristotle’s favourite shows. I love it because the “way of the Jedi” offers so many terrific teaching opportunities on developing the growth mindset and character development. Take, for example, the following dialogue between Luke Skywalker (our hero) and Yoda (his master)… Luke Skywalker: Master, moving stones around is one thing.

Parenting: Changing Your Child’s Mindset from Fixed to Growth

I’m concerned about Aristotle. Actually, I’ve been concerned for a long time now and the older Aristotle grows, the more I have observed that increases my concern. Despite all my best efforts to negate the problem, it seems like nothing I’ve done has had any effect. So what’s the problem? Fixed Mindset or Growth Mindset?