From what I have seen, the thing to do these days is to tell your kids they are clever. More than clever, they are brilliant, and can do anything they want and become anything they want. Secondary teachers tell stories of parents, who, on hearing that their little darling hasn’t passed the exam they sat, blame the teacher. At no point does it enter their heads that it could be said darling’s fault.
Every so often the newspapers will publish details on some latest piece of research that has found that this is having a detrimental effect. Children are growing up expecting the world to fall at their feet and that everything is within their grasp. When they grow up, reality hits them. Hard.
While I am all for positive reinforcement, I am more a follower of Professor Carol Dweck’s philosophy. While Dweck, like several other social psychologists believes that IQ is not fixed, what makes her different is the focus on fixed and growth mindsets. People with a fixed mindset believe success comes from talent alone, so someone who does well in a maths exam, does so because they are good at maths, With a growth mindset, someone does well because they studied hard.
There is research to back this theory up. I won’t go into detail here but basically it involved one group being told they were clever when they did well, another group being told they worked really hard. The ones who were told they worked really hard consistently performed better.
We shouldn’t put our children down. And I do think children need confidence. But I think I agree with Dweck. My children aren’t clever, they work hard.
