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In this guide:

What is a growth mindset and why is it important for effective learning?

How do children develop a fixed mindset? 

The science behind the growth mindset

The 6 skills needed to build a growth mindset

How to make ‘growth mindset’ my child’s default learning mode?

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Also read: 

18 Ways Parents Can Help Make Growth Mindset the Default Learning Mode

Does my Child have a Learning Mindset?

11 Growth Mindset Myths and Misconceptions All Parents Can Avoid

When Does Fear Start Ruling Your Child's Learning?

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What will it take to guarantee success in an unknown future? What our children learn today may or may not be useful tomorrow. But if they knew how to learn effectively, no matter what the future holds, they would be able to learn it. For this, they must want to learn and know how to learn. 

In the 21st century, a learning (growth) mindset empowers them to learn anything they need to, adapt, and innovate in the face of disruption and distraction. A learner with a growth mindset knows they are in charge of their own learning journey.

Here’s everything parents need to know about learning or growth mindset in children and how to nurture it in simple ways, everyday, at home.

What is a growth mindset and why is it important for effective learning? 

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Dr. Carol Dweck coined the term Growth Mindset, and its opposite, the ‘fixed mindset’ a couple of decades ago, but the relevance of the terms in how people - especially children - learn has not faded an ounce. It has only become more relevant than ever. 

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A Growth Mindset is defined as believing that whatever intelligence, ability and skill you were born with can be improved and grown. People with a growth mindset believe the brain is a muscle that can be made stronger with the right exercise and practice. It changes and grows in response to our actions. They believe they are capable of improving their performance at anything with the right learning strategies - skills, techniques and styles. 

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A fixed mindset, on the other hand, can be defined as believing that you have to accept what you were born with. In the case of intellectual ability or skills, this can mean believing that if you are ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ at something, you will always have to be weak or strong at those things. 

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A growth mindset is the preferred learning mindset for 21st century learners, who will need to thrive in a time of unpredictable disruption and great distraction.

In reality, most people have neither a growth mindset, nor a fixed mindset. 

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In fact, most people have what is called a mixed mindset.

That means, in some areas, they tend to demonstrate a fixed mindset, while in others, it may be a growth mindset. Our natural abilities and intelligence can be stronger in some areas and weak in others, and we also tend to adopt a growth mindset with activities we like or enjoy more. 

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We are all mixed up - in some areas fixed, some areas growth. This is a continuum, a spectrum - not two isolated and opposite points. So  it follows that our mindset can keep evolving, and changing with the context, life circumstances, as well as social and emotional context. It is not just an intellectual or academic intelligence related concept. 

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There is a lot of content out there about what each is - I have also put down the 10 most common myths, misconceptions and mistakes about the growth mindset in this blog. So in this post, we are laser focused on everything parents need to know about developing a stronger growth mindset in their child, as well as how to help a child who is clearly in the fixed mindset to gently transition towards a stronger growth mindset.

How do Children Develop a Fixed Mindset?

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Before we even begin, it's important to think about how our child gets stuck with a fixed mindset. 

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After all, children come into his world (like each of us did) excited to learn and grow! We explore everything we encounter by touching, tasting and throwing (!), we learn to walk and talk on our own, we are hungry to learn and we simply have no fear of failure when we are children. 

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And yet, as we grow older, we start to lose that very quickly, we start getting fixed in our ideas about our skills, abilities and intelligences, we start fearing failure, looking stupid or being judged. 

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Well, I’m just going to get the hardest part of this out of the way. The main reason children develop a fixed mindset is…us the parents. We play the most significant role in helping our children develop their mindset: be it fixed or growth. The come teachers, relatives, community, institutions and authority figures, and of course, peers and friends.

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So, while it's scary to accept that we, as parents, are significantly responsible for the mindset our children tend to carry into life, we can also breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we are powerful enough to help them change their mindset  - or shift their mindset to a more positive and constructive growth mindset!

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To understand how your child develops a fixed mindset, think of a time when you got things wrong, or felt you were not good enough to do something, or tried something once but it didn't work out and then you didn't go back to it - it can be a sport or an instrument or even a career choice. 

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Of course, admitting you suck at something is unpleasant.

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As parents, we can look for what triggers our child’s motivation to learn, what happens when they face a big challenge, a setback or receive criticism, when they see someone do something better than them. 

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What are their trigger moments and how do they react and respond?

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It is at these trigger moments - these moments of choice on how to proceed -  we either choose with a fixed mindset or growth mindset. We either decide to abandon it, citing a reason like, 'I'm not musical anyway’, or ‘this is too hard', 'I'm not smart enough’, OR we say, “hey, this is a cool challenge. I suck at it - I’m nowhere close to perfection yet - but I can try and get better at this!

The Science Behind the Growth Mindset

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The science says that the connections between the neurons in our brain grow stronger and denser as we exercise our brain: i.e do something challenging, learn something new. It's called neuroplasticity. 

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Research shows that growth mindset students and children actually do better in school, because their goal is not to prove what they already know, but rather to learn and grow more beyond what they already know. They believe mistakes and even failures are opportunities to grow smarter. They are ready to stretch their mental muscles.

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Growth mindset offers a long-term approach to be an effective learner and a more successful lifelong learner.

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For example, ask any high-achiever: sportsperson or singer - they will tell you that they never stop trying. They get better because they keep taking on new challenges and improving themselves at any stage. Their focus is not on looking smarter or cleverer, but to learn and grow in their field. Continuous improvement. Kaizen. 

On the other hand, a fixed mindset learner will focus on appearing smart and correct and good at all costs. This means, they will tend to stay in their comfort zone, where they know they can turn in a winning performance, and they will try to avoid challenges and mistakes so that they can never be seen to fail or underperform. 

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In fact, research shows that fixed mindset learners (and some very smart kids have fixed mindsets) also tend to resort to cheating or other dubious means like cover-ups to maintain the façade that they are ‘smart’. Think about it - if you were under constant pressure to look better or smarter than you feel, you could go to any lengths to maintain that.

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A growth mindset child will not feel any need to cover up inadequacies, since there is a genuine intention and ongoing effort to get better. The focus is on getting better, not looking better.

Students with a growth mindset tend to work harder as their focus is on improvement, not how they appear to others. Enough studies show that they achieve substantially higher performance outcomes - especially with challenging subjects - because their mindset propels a self-propagating virtuous cycle. You believe you can do better at something, so you put more effort to get where you need to get, and as a result, you actually do make progress! 

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A study of all the 10th graders in Chile - 170K students - found that at every level of family income, there was a significant gap between the learning outcomes of students who held a growth and fixed mindset. 

The 6 Skills Needed to Enable Your Child’s Growth Mindset

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Parents - there is no magic formula to switch off a fixed mindset and switch on the growth mindset! So I wish I could say A+B will lead to C. However, what I have observed as making a difference is to work on the learning skills that ultimately help lead to a growth mindset. 

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However, remember that a default growth mindset is a factor of many variables, and skill is just one of them. In the next section, we discuss the larger set of factors involved in helping your child to make Growth Mindset their default mode. 

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But first, let's talk about the 6 skills needed to enable a growth mindset.

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1. Self-awareness

Honest awareness of one’s areas for improvement, internal self-motivation for learning and improvement (versus external validation of one’s cleverness), learning preferences and learning styles

2. Ability to ask for and act on feedback

The feedback loop is crucial for learners to improve their outcomes

3. Planning and goal-setting skills

Setting milestones to lead up to goals and calibrate/ course correct (without external pressure)

4. Reflection

The ability to process the learning experience, and make stronger connections using reflection techniques

5. Ability to take deliberate action

Action, follow through and perseverance in a learning situation. The idea is to move out of autopilot mode and move into a more mindful, aware learning mode

6. Ability to learn from failure or mistakes

See failure as intrinsic to learning and as a valuable growth opportunity

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Albert Einstein, one of the smartest and most effective learners on earth, said of himself “I’m not smarter- I stick to things longer, I am more curious.” 

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And guess what? He was labeled a slow learner! 

Sure, he took his time to process things, but being self-aware of his own learning style and process, as well having clarity on his learning goals irrespective of what people said, he was able to get the learning outcomes he wanted. 

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How To Make Growth Mindset Your Child’s Default Learning Mode

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It’s clear that as parents, we don’t want negative or limiting beliefs or the imposter syndrome to be our child’s default mode. We want them to live with a growth mindset in all aspects of their life- emotional, social and intellectual. But let’s talk about the learning context here.

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We may already be observing symptoms of a fixed mindset in our children when it comes to learning new things, more challenging things. 

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As Dr.Dweck says, “I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves in [a learning setting], in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?”

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In other words, fixed-mindset learners will choose sure-shot learning options so that they can succeed and look smart. Growth-minded learners will tend to stretch themselves, because they want to become smarter rather than just seem smart. 

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The fixed mindset is limiting because it scares us off new challenges that may leave us feeling vulnerable or require us to unlearn and relearn new things. 

In that case, it's reasonable to ask if I, as a parent, can change my child’s existing mindset. 

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Learning Mindset Can be Built At Any Age, But the Earlier You Start, the Easier It Is

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Developing a growth mindset is a lifelong journey, where you are constantly improving your learning strategies and performance. 

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In that sense, one possible formula to build a growth mindset could be: 

Take on challenges + stick through the struggle + find the right mix of strategies and support = improve your performance. 

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It’s important that we help our children remain lifelong learners and help them develop a growth mindset, i.e. believing they can further develop their intelligence with the right effort, mentoring, practice, and strategies. 

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Not everyone needs to be a genius, but everybody has the capacity for growth, and everybody has the choice to learn like a genius. 

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FOR A HANDY ONE-PAGE SUMMARY OF THIS GUIDE, CLICK ON THE PDF ICON BELOW!

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Follow this up with: More curated resources about helping early learners, tweens and teens build a learning mindset

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Also read: 

18 Ways Parents Can Help Make Growth Mindset the Default Learning Mode

Does my Child have a Learning Mindset?

11 Growth Mindset Myths and Misconceptions All Parents Can Avoid

When Does Fear Start Ruling Your Child's Learning?

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