How to give your kids a growth mindset

(Read time: 2 minutes)

Hello and welcome to another edition of Prequel: the free weekly newsletter for parents like you who want their kids to succeed. We give you weekly insights on how your children can get ahead ― in school and in life.  

We’ve got lots to tell you, so let’s dive right in. Here’s what you’ll get today:

💡 How to give your kids a growth mindset
⚡️ 2 Short lessons
🚀 3 tools to boost your family’s productivity

💡 Valuable Things Kids Don’t Learn In School

How to give your kids a growth mindset

Kids with a growth mindset see mistakes as growth opportunities. A growth mindset is key to helping kids become who they want to be — without it, they’ll get stuck at the first challenge.

It’s a skill that can make or break your child’s success. Luckily, growth mindsets are largely fostered at home.

Here are 5 ways you can actively help your child build a growth mindset:

1. Don’t only reflect after things go wrong

Whether they succeed or fail, teach your kids the importance of reflection.

If you only reflect after failure, your kids will learn that all that matters is to avoid failure.

When you reflect on every outcome, your child will learn that what matters is the overall process of learning and growing. No matter the outcome, there’s always something to learn from the process!

2. Read stories of successful people — and the mistakes they made along the way

You’ll be hard-pressed to find any successful person that did everything perfectly the first time.

Tell your child about how Steve Jobs was fired from Apple before he returned to bring the company to the success it enjoys today.

Or how Steven Spielberg was rejected several times by the University of Southern California before he became one of the most successful directors of all time (and a trustee at the same university).

When your child makes a mistake or faces rejection, remind them they’re in good company.

All that matters is what they do next.

3. Change the way you praise your child.

If you only praise your child’s abilities (like their awesome math skills or their natural gift for public speaking), they’ll believe their abilities are the most important.

But if you instead focus your praise on their efforts, they’ll learn that what’s most important is how well they grow and change over time — not how good they were to begin with.

And this means that if they do well but didn’t put in much effort to get that outcome, you should note that and ask why they didn’t give their best try. This will teach them that effort is more important than results.

4. Make “yet” your favorite word.

Any time your child says they can’t do something?

Add this magical little word: “yet”.

Remind them that anything they want to achieve is possible with time and effort. Soon, they’ll find themselves saying it, too.

5. Practice “grit”.

Dr. Angela Duckworth’s bestselling book on grit tells us that the kids who stick to their goals day in and day out will be the most successful, academically and professionally (note that she didn’t write a book about kids with the highest IQ or with natural-born talents — meaning anyone can achieve success with enough hard work).

The next time your child wants to give up, encourage them to keep trying. Remind them of their goals and what they wanted to accomplish.

Approaching their goals with grit and perseverance is more important than accomplishing them on the first try.

⚡️ 2 Short Lessons

1. How to start teaching your kids about AI tools like we do at Apollo (link)

2. 5 skills every kid should be learning right now (link)

🚀 3 Tools To Boost Your Family’s Productivity

1. Microsoft Designer — Generate unique AI-generated images from a simple description.

2. Chat YouTube — get a summary of any YouTube video, and ask it questions to deepen your learning.

3. Aragon — turn selfies into professional headshots.

Thanks for reading!

Did you find this issue helpful? Let me know what you thought of today’s issue and what you’d like to see from us next time.

Until next time,
Ivy
CEO Prequel, Beta Camp, Apollo
Follow my journey on LinkedIn