Stanford professor, Dr. Carol S. Dweck, has been researching "mindset" in education for decades. She discovered that how children view themselves and their ability makes an enormous impact on how they persevere in the face of difficulty. More importantly, her research found that students who have been told how "smart" they are often refuse to perform when faced with something unfamiliar or unusually difficult. Her research has shown that, as parents and educators, we better serve children by praising specific successes and the paths taken to get there and to thoughtfully and kindly discuss failures and what those failures have taught us. Visit my BLOG for more details and please read Dr. Dweck's book, "Mindset, the New Psychology of Success."
