The
Secret to Raising
Smart Kids
Hint: Don't tell your kids that they are. More than
three
decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not
on intelligence or ability—is key to success
in school and in life.
A
brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school.
He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned
A's. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates
struggled, and his parents told him he had a special gift.
In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost
interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for
tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents
tried to boost their son’s confidence by assuring
him that he was very smart. But their attempts failed
to motivate Jonathan (who is a composite drawn from several
children). Schoolwork, their son maintained, was boring
and pointless.
Our society worships talent, and many people assume that
possessing superior intelligence or ability—along
with confidence in that ability—is a recipe for
success. In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific
investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect
or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful
of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.
The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast
through the early grades under the dangerous notion that
no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or
gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence
is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far
less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief
also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the
need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than
as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose
confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy
for them.
Praising children’s innate abilities, as Jonathan’s
parents did, reinforces this mind-set, which can also
prevent young athletes or people in the workforce and
even marriages from living up to their potential. On the
other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have
a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus
on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps
make them into high achievers in school and in life.
The Opportunity of Defeat
I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human
motivation—and how people persevere after setbacks—as
a psychology graduate student at Yale University in the
1960's. Animal experiments by psychologists Martin Seligman,
Steven Maier and Richard Solomon of the University of
Pennsylvania had shown that after repeated failures, most
animals conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond
their control. After such an experience, the researchers
found, an animal often remains passive even when it can
affect change—a state they called learned helplessness.
People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone
reacts to setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students
give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others
who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn?
One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people’s beliefs
about why they had failed.
In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack
of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief
that lack of effort is to blame. In 1972, when I taught
a group of elementary and middle school children who displayed
helpless behavior in school that a lack of effort (rather
than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math problems,
the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got
tough. They also solved many of the problems even in the
face of difficulty. Another group of helpless children
who were simply rewarded for their success on easy problems
did not improve their ability to solve hard math problems.
These experiments were an early indication that a focus
on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.
Please
click here
to continue reading The Secret to Raising
Smart Kids.
Reprinted
from The Scientific American Mind |
Note
from Kevin
 Greetings!
Right
now you may be questioning whether or not you want to
take your most valuable time to read an article on "raising
kids." Trust me on this one: reading this article
is not only a good use of time but may do more to raise
employee confidence and engagement than anything you read
this year.
In
this article author Carol Dweck does a masterful job of
illustrating how two different mindsets around achievement
are developed. Subtly and over time, as parents, we reinforce
behavior (sound familiar?) that promotes either a "can
do" or "don’t want to do" mentality.
That drive for or aversion to achievement is directly
related to how the child, and ultimately your employees,
think.
First,
Dweck defines what is called a "fixed mindset"
where achievement is directly tied to ability. For the
person with this mindset, any lack of achievement will
be directly related to ability or intrinsic worth. Next
she defines what is called a "growth mindset"
where achievement is tied to effort, persistence and hard
work. For the person with this mindset, a lack of achievement
will be related to a lack of effort or due diligence.
It
doesn’t take much deep thinking to put the pieces
together from here. When you think about the people you
want working with you, which mind set do you want? A mindset
where people avoid challenge (failure would mean something
is"wrong") or a mindset where people seek out
and dig into challenge?
Last
Sunday morning I was watching Meet the Press with Tim
Russert, and his guest was Steve Martin who was promoting
his new book; Born Standing Up. I was amazed
to hear some of the stories of Martin's early years in
the comedy business but even more impressed to learn how
much hard work went into his becoming a great comedian.
He stressed the fact that it takes years to develop great
talent in any field, and it takes an incredible amount
of hard work and persistence.
This
leads me to the point of this article and how we can use
it to improve performance and engagement in the workplace.
As we manage people each and every day, we should focus
on rewarding effort, not on the end result. Over time
we can create a culture of "Growth Minded" employees
who lean into challenges and understand that their success
and the success of their companies will be a result of
hard work, persistence and determination.
Life
is good...
KW
|
