1. Start with yourself 

Our entire conditioning starts with our parents. So start with yourself. Do you really have a growth mindset yourself? What is your approach to learning/ Are you afraid to learn new things because you are afraid of making mistakes or failing? Do you avoid asking for help because you dont want to appear helpless, weak or stupid? Do you chide yourself each time you make a mistake? Do you believe you were ‘born this way’? What does your inner voice tell you when you are faced with challenges or roadblocks? 

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I’m not implying that a fixed mindset parent will always raise a fixed mindset child or vice-versa. I’m saying that when you are walking the talk yourself, your authenticity will shine through to your child as well, and there are higher chances of a home culture that fosters growth and effective learning.

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2. Examine your home culture

Ask yourself as parents, what is the culture around learning in your home? A parents’ reaction to the child’s mistakes are big determinants of their growth mindset. A culture of negativity, making excuses for your own child’s failure, or justifying someone else’s success can all impair a growth mindset.

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Is the culture in your home one that:

1. Blames/ finds fault? Instead, when mistakes or failures occur, focus on the process: track back and identify the weak links in the learning process to help your child fix it and move forward. It is more productive for a child to take responsibility to improve a weak link in the learning process. Pinning blame for a failure is not constructive in any way, for anyone.

2. Focuses on what others think? Do you seek external validation or outside agreement for everything? 

3. Rewards reasonable risk-taking, sustained efforts, trying many strategies and making progress , or does it only highlight and reward the results and output. (for example, do you Instagram the final output of a project your child is working on, or the process as well? Do you Instagram the failed projects or just the ones that run out perfectly?) 

4. Shows interest in diverse careers and possibilities, treating a career as a vocation rather than an occupation. 

5. Encourages healthy debate and discussion around conflicting ideas and agreeing to disagree? 

6. Provides equal opportunity to all members to try anything they want to (irrespective of whether they are ‘good at it’ or not? 

7. Embraces failure: failure and mistakes are not bad or wrong. They are just stepping stones in our learning process. That successful people too fail and make more mistakes than their successes (but we only read about the successes). For example, do you react to setbacks with anxiety and concern? Or with ‘how can we make this better next time?’

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3. Create the right physical, emotional and intellectual learning ecosystem 

Building a healthy, positive and conducive learning environment at home is simpler and less complicated than you may think. But beyond what's in the home, it's also the ecosystem that the child is exposed to: community, school, relatives and family, that impact their comfort with learning to learn. A great place to start is to find ways to collaborate with teachers, bring them into your effort to create a growth mindset.

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4. Understand your child’s learning context better

Observe your child and engage with them to better identify their limiting beliefs, trigger points and fears in the context of how and what they learn. In my experience, rather than asking questions such as ‘What motivates you?’ which they see as trick questions (!) you can try asking them to think and talk about what they may choose to learn if they were designing the school curriculum - what would they do differently and why?

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I’ve found games like Train Of Thought to be a fun way to get these conversations going in a natural way - you can start broad and narrow down to the learning context as they get comfortable with sharing. 

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5. Consult and co-create with your child

Once children understand the difference between growth and fixed mindset, they will become aware of it and can be more intentional about it. So don’t hesitate to explain the science of learning, and how connecting neurons help our brains get stronger. There are enough age-appropriate resources available online to help introduce the concept of growth mindset to children.

I started with this video  and followed it up with this brief clip from BBC on learning. Then we transitioned to this workbook from Big Life Journal  - I found it quite useful to start have those conversations which can end up sounding somewhat contrived or awkward. Either way, it needs considerable and sustained investment of time, and consistent effort from parents to really build a conceptual understanding of effective learning.

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Bonus Resource: The All-In Growth Mindset Infographic

6. Go beyond study skills 

Just building study skills, as Dr. Dweck's study shows, does not lead to tangible gains to effective learning. However, when study skills are combined with additional factors, it can lead to really great learning outcomes. These include:

• A growth mindset (with the 6 skills I mentioned above)
• Effective learning strategies and techniques. 
• Regular effort and practice over time
• An ecosystem of interested and engaged mentors and coaches
• Regular and constructive feedback 

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7. Build child’s self-awareness and empowerment 

When a child is more conscious and aware of the learning process, their own learning style and preferences, as well as the context in which they learn and live, it leads to a more deliberate and mindful practice of the growth mindset.

Help children feel empowered and in control of their learning journey by giving them choices and having discussions to co-create their learning journey. Engage with them to set up a rhythm and structure to the day; et them take the lead in planning their day or week, setting learning goals and milestones, making a plan B or devising alternative approaches to learning if one way fails.

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8. Change their and your mindset towards exams

Help children develop a healthy attitude towards exams, evaluations and grading: these are all an inevitable part of life, but seeing them as the very purpose of learning, or the only acceptable learning goal is limiting. Children need to believe that an exam grade is not a final judgment on their ability. It is just a milestone to assess where the are right now, and an opportunity to course correct their learning strategy as needed. 

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9. Focus on the process and not the outcome

Let children understand that outcomes are not final, they change and evolve based on effort and process. When you practice more, try harder, you have the power to change the outcome.

So if you must work on anything, let it be the process, not the outcome.

The result will follow. Encourage your child to do several activities a week with no fixed outcome in mind: just immerse in the process and see what all comes of it (even if ‘nothing’ seemingly comes of it). Encourage self-directed learning for growth - not only for pre-determined goals and outcomes. Embrace serendipity in learning.

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10. Build their reflection skills

Use these reflection techniques to strengthen reflection skills in any learning situation. True learning happens only when we are able to make connections and meaning of what we have just experienced. Without reflection, we are unable to truly internalize what we have learnt. 

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11. Have a solutions-oriented and problem solving mindset

Growth mindset learners dwell on the possible solutions, not the problem itself. Investing the time to ask the right questions and experiment with multiple approaches will help build a learning mindset as well as remove the fear of making mistakes or not having the perfect solution.

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12. Build a spectrum of possibilities, not a world of binaries

Build a culture where your family understands that there are many possibilities along a spectrum, rather than boxing everything into a neat silo. For example, watch how you talk about winning and losing. Instead, share how even the best players win and lose. 

What is important is putting in the effort to make consistent improvements. Sure,  you may sometimes be outscored, but if you are able to learn and improve, it's not really a loss. Of late, we have been discussing the concept of finite and infinite games at home as well, accepting that some things in life need to be win-lose; and other situations demand the infinite approach.

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13. Go beyond encouragement and praise

A lot of parents think offering words of encouragement, positive thinking and praise are enough to build a growth mindset in their child. But it is not. 

Just saying ‘You are capable of anything’ is not enough. Give them the tools to become capable of anything. 

This means teaching for conceptual understanding, giving them feedback to deepen that understanding, and a schedule to recall, revise and practice to cement the understanding. Add on regular self-evaluations, mentoring, guided challenges, and constructive feedback loops for optimal results. 

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14. Build a self-propagating virtuous cycle

When we make considered efforts to learn and improve, we create a virtuous cycle: learn, practice, make mistakes, get feedback, improve, learn more, show performance improvement.

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15. Redefine smart and stupid

Be conscious of how you refer to people as smart or stupid.  In fact, redefine them altogether. A smart person is not a genius but someone who is able to learn from their mistakes and take on challenges because they are not afraid to fail. 

A person is being stupid not by asking questions or admitting they don’t know, but rather by being someone who refuses to learn or someone who thinks they know everything.

Other terms worth redefining? Mistake, difficult, failure, success. Work with your child to reframe these typically negative word-associations to something positive, which leads to new possibilities. 

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16. Ban shame and stereotypes

Shame is a big factor in creating fixed mindsets because having a setback is so humiliating and there is so much pressure to look smart, not be rejected, etc. 

But phycologists say shame is not a productive emotion. It makes you either want to hide away (flight) or lash out (fight). A growth mindset won't protect us from disappointments, but there is the awareness that it is a temporary setback, and with effort and practice, it can be changed. 

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Learners with a growth mindset know that they do not have to live with unpleasant outcomes if they are willing to do something about it. 

Stereotypes are also super-damaging to children and their approach to learning. For example, constantly hearing that girls are weak at STEM subjects causes a child to have a fixed mindset towards those subjects (The inner voice says, ‘I don’t deserve this’, ‘I don't belong here’, ‘It won't come to anything’.).

Create instead a space where the only belief is that anyone can do better if they learn and practice the skills. With a growth mindset, a child may dislike the inevitable stereotypes they will face in real life, but it won’t affect them or their decisions so deeply. 

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17. Replace empty praise with engagement

Labels like smart, intelligent, creative narrow the child down to one dimension, and put them under immense pressure to be smart or creative or intelligent in everything they do. Which is why they start avoiding learning challenges that may call that label into question. 

‍But if you can’t call your child smart, or praise their drawing/dance performance/ essay, what can you say instead? ‍

Here are a few alternatives to empty praise:

• Show interest in the process of creation - ask more questions about it
• Give encouragement for the effort, especially to learn and do new things beyond existing knowledge
• Appreciate the effort, but tie it to specific  feedback. For example, “It’s so great that you have stuck with the guitar and moved from 3 chords to 5”.
• Instead of empty praise, encourage the effort. At an appropriate time, suggest new challenges to move them out of their comfort zone and into the next level.

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18. Aim for daily improvement, not incremental and exponential leaps

Setting progress milestones is a key learning skill. A growth mindset learner commits themselves to small daily improvements, instead of chasing unrealistic goals that promise exponential leaps of improvement. Talk about the things that can be done everyday to move the needle to the next milestone, instead of grand plans that may never materialize. 

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Growth Mindset is a 21st Century Learning Superpower

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It is important for parents to integrate the growth mindset fundamentals into their child’s daily routine. 

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Help them to:

• Focus on the process rather than the outcomes or results alone: they should be clear about the relationship between effort, process, and results.

• Build reflection skills
  
  
• Learn how to ask for and act on feedback
  
  
• Make learning a habit- consciously learn something new every day and journal or document it to see how much they have learnt over a short period. 7 new things in a week! 30 new things in a month! 365 diverse new things in a year!
  
  
• Learn the art of self-evaluation rather than comparing themselves with anyone else
  
  
• Build a toolbox of learning techniques: experiment with and master a few select effective learning techniques, especially deliberate practice for recall.
  
  
• Embrace, struggle, failure and frustration as part of the learning process.

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With these tips, there is nothing stopping your child from nurturing a strong learning mindset and becoming a happy and fearless lifelong learner!

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