Grit and Growth Mindset

Grit has been described as passion and perseverance. It’s the ability to do hard things. It seems to be in shorter supply in today’s world than in past generations. Most people put too much value on natural talent and fail to see the value in hard work. 

 If we are not intentional in teaching our children to be gritty, they will become more accustomed to ease and less familiar with difficulty. They may become soft. They may already be soft. What can we do about it? How can we teach our children grit?

Grit goes hand-hand with both hard work and determination. We teach our children grit when we teach them the value of hard work and expect them to do it. We teach it when we have high expectations of honest effort.

It also comes as we let them struggle. Figure things out. Not jump in to solve problems or give all the answers. They'll gain confidence in their ability to power through obstacles and keep going.

Having grit is part of having a growth mindset. This video by Angela Lee Duckworth is an amazing tool for knowing how to inspire this in our children.

(Dweck, Developing a Growth Mindset, 2014)

In the video, Dweck makes a powerful statement about the power of yet, instead of the tyranny of now. She tells us that a growth mindset means that we don’t look at failure as permanent. What a valuable thing to instill in our children. Viewing our shortcomings as opportunities to grow broadens our sense of our potential.

The manner in which we praise our children helps determine if they have a fixed or growth mindset. The following chart gives suggestions for fostering the latter.

 (Growth Mindset, n.d.)

As we work on instilling a growth mindset in our children, I believe we will also benefit from these principles. It's never too late to change our own mindset and reframe our perceptions of failure as opportunity for continued learning and growth.

Works Cited

Dweck, C. (2014, 10 9). Developing a Growth Mindset.

Growth Mindset. (n.d.). Retrieved from Mindset Scholars Network: https://mindsetscholarsnetwork.org/learning-mindsets/growth-mindset/#

Communication

I once heard someone say that we should talk to our children as if they are who they will someday become. That was powerful to me. I think most parents think their children are amazing; if you don’t believe that, you’ve probably never had a conversation with a young parent whose baby has started smiling, rolling over, crawling, or walking ahead of the expected schedule. We all feel that we have a gifted one on our hands and our hopes and dreams of what our baby will be fill us with pride. 

Eventually, we all get caught up in the mundane of everyday life. Diapers, dishes, homework, practices, cleaning, work, and making dinner fill our days with distraction and duty. We forget to look for the amazingness of these people that we love so much. Our communication with them changes from the early encouraging and loving sounds, to more critical and business-like conversation. If we could only see them for who they will someday be - doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers, teachers, nurses, engineers, nurturers, or breadwinners – we would naturally show respect to them through the way we talk. We would be less likely to throw out drill sergeant-like commands or sharp reprimands.

 Ginott writes about the importance of positive communication between parents and children.

“Parents set the tone of the home. Their response to every problem determines whether it will be escalated or de-escalated. Thus, parents need to discard a language of rejection and learn a language of acceptance…It's a language that is protective of feelings, not critical of behavior.” (Ginott, 1965)

What a better place our homes would be if we learned how to de-escalate problems and replace rejection with acceptance. I think we often forget the power of our words when we correct our children.

“…words can brutalize as well as civilize, injure as well as heal. Parents need a language of compassion, a language that lingers lovingly. They need words that convey feelings, responses that change moods, statements that encourage goodwill, answers that bring insight, replies that radiate respect. The world talks to the mind. Parents speak more intimately, they speak to the heart, when they adopt a language of caring, which is sensitive to children’s needs and feelings. It not only helps children develop a positive image of themselves that is confident and secure but also teaches them to treat their parents with respect and consideration.” (Ginott, 1965)

Establishing a pattern of positive and respectful communication with our children ends up being a symbiotic relationship. They return the favor and it’s truly a win-win situation. In terms of communicating with children, we reap what we sow.

Works Cited

Ginott, H. G. (1965). Between Parent and Child: New Solutions to Old Problems.

Never Violence

Parenting is an extreme emotional sport. It’s not for the faint of heart.

The highs are high…

and the lows can be low.

At times we feel the exhilaration of pure, unbridled joy, and at other times our patience is tested and we feel pushed to the very edge of our limits. It's amazing to love someone so much and also be so frustrated by them. We worry about them and truly want to teach them to be good, kind, functioning humans that make the world a better place. It can feel like a heavy task to teach them; they inevitably do things wrong and we feel the weight of our responsibility to teach them and refine them into being the potential-filled adult we see inside of them. 

Children misbehave, show disrespect, and push our buttons. They wear us down and wear us out. It can be tempting at times to physically punish our children when they don't obey us. It can seem like the only way to teach them the lesson we want them to learn, or it can seem like the natural, warranted outlet for the anger we feel. Neal A. Maxwell taught us that we still have our agency in those moments. 

"Of course our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability."(Maxwell, 1996)

 Anger is a hard emotion to temper. However, Maxwell taught us that we still have a zone of sovereignty where we get to decide how we react. We get to choose how we handle the situation. No one can take that power to choose away from us, nor can we blame how we handle it on anyone else. 

I recently read a story about discipline that touched my heart and gave me further clarity into why physical punishment is not the Lord's way:

When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking - - the first of his life. And she told him that he would have to go outside himself and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, 'Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me.' All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because violence begins in the nursery - - one can raise children into violence." (Nilson, 1992)

It breaks my heart that the little boy in the story thought his mom was spanking him for the purpose of inflicting pain on him. It goes to show that our kids lack the life experience and perspective to understand physical punishment. They cannot make the connection when it is not there to be made. I believe that physically disciplining our children may achieve the short-term behavioral correction we seek. But I feel that the damage it does to their tender hearts will far outlast the lesson that was intended to be taught.

Works Cited

Maxwell, N. A. (1996, October). According to the Desire of our Hearts. Ensign.

Nilson, L. (1992, October). Pippi Power: An Interview with Astrid Lingren. Parenting, p. 132.