couple of weeks ago I shared that one of the values of the staff at GCCS is to “partner with parents.” Another value is to “live out and encourage a growth mindset.” Our mindset – the way we see the world with all its opportunities and its challenges, will profoundly shape our experience in it and largely also our success. In fact one of the best things we can give our child is a growth mindset so that they know that they can and will continually improve in any area of life if they put forward the effort required. But it is obviously not enough to tell them about having a growth mindset we must model it. As the cliché goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” Many times in life, I’ve heard adults say to children, “Do what I say, not as I do,” and yet we know that children will follow more what we do than what we say. (Monkey see, monkey do!)
In addition to our modeling a growth mindset we need to be careful with our words so that they encourage a child to work hard and grow and don’t in fact have the opposite consequences. This video shows how complimenting/praising a child based on their intelligence and abilities can actually cause their performance level to decline whereas complimenting or praising a child’s effort almost always has positive outcomes. As progress reports went home recently it is a good time for us all to be mindful of the impact that our actions and our words have as we endeavor to encourage each child to flourish!
