How learning from failures help to create growth mindset?

The topic “How learning from failures help to create growth mindset?”

This will happen if people let kids and themselves to fail.

Overprotection not help

If you are a parent and raising kids let them fail. If kids can not learn how to overcome on failures then they might have fears and anxiety.

If you have never been able to fail as a kid or it is/was not allowed then how would you be able to overcome on failures?

If you raise kids by overprotecting them that will break them a bit or they might have fears to try out new things.

What is fear?

According to APA fear is a basic, intense emotion aroused by the detection of imminent threat. It is involving an immediate alarm reaction that mobilizes the organism by triggering a set of physiological changes.

These include rapid heartbeat, redirection of blood flow away from the periphery toward the gut, tensing of the muscles, and a general mobilization of the organism to take action for example fear response, fight-or-flight response.

Fear is considered an appropriate short-term response to a present, clearly identifiable threat.

Instead of this

• Motivate,
• Help,
• Understand kids.

Communication is key, so ask what happened and try to help. Further punishment not helpful. Maybe you think you help, but in reality not.

This is a good way to teach kids for important life lessons.

Life Lessons

1. Resilience

People most of the time not succeed in everything for the first time, but life goes on and kids need to grow to be resilient regarding the adversities of life.

No one else will teach this to kids, but parents can from early childhood.

2. Take away electronic items for a short period of time (week or two weeks)

If you want as a parent, but give kids chance to get it back within a week or two. Forcing kids to stuck in a situation, because they have failed have no sense. Not helpful. Instead you are conservating a situation and hibernate kids to stuck.

Strengthen fears from future failures and this cause anxiety later on.

It’s better if kids realize that’s not the end of the world, but if you make it the end of the world then this will not help.

3. Don’t exaggerate the problem

You can tell you could take away for example electronic items for longer time, but instead tell you trust in your kids that you will solve together the situation and help them to succeed…

How to help?

By showing different ways, but not the solution. Give kids space & time to fail and overcome on failures.

Don’t induce kids to rebel or get them into a “new game” what you create for them for example punish them to take away favourite toys or electronic items (phones, tablets, computers, games etc.) for a very long time.

Kids and teenagers are very sensitive and creative and they can outsmart you on the long-run. Be consequent regarding your methods otherwise you will not understand what is happening and why.

4. Learning how to take responsibility for failures and how to overcome on them

When kids fail in life it means they need to learn

• HOW to live,
• HOW to study more effectively,
• HOW to succeed… and try more times,
• HOW to take responsibility.

If you punish kids further after failures that could

• create fears from failures (anxiety), and
• take away their courage to discover & fail.

What is anxiety?

According to American Psychological Association anxiety is an emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension. In which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat. Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly.

Anxiety is future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat.

5. Failures are natural

Kids and adults will fail in life no matter what, because we are all fail at some points in life. We are human beings and that’s how we learn.

Not failing is unnatural, so if someone never fails it might means they are always in their comfortzone and they might never try anything new or challenging.

How to help?

Show kids different ways how not to fail next time as you want to raise an independent person, but don’t solve the problem.

In life after failures you need to move on fast and try again or create other opportunities for yourself.

What you need to SHOW?

• How not to give up after the first failure?
• How to move on and develop resilience?
• How to find different ways to succeed, which makes for kids possible to succeed next time.

Life never stops and kids need to learn new skills to succeed next time.

It means for example

• trying again,
• trying in different ways,
• looking for causes behind failures and trying to help on that. Is there any disorder? Most people don’t have, but some yes.

Others get bored with some subject…that’s life…you can’t be perfect in everything you try.

What is Growth mindset?

Growth mindset means kids and later adults can learn a new skill, when they need in life, which will help them further. A part of long-term thinking and life-long learning.

In a nutshell: “A growth mindset is when students understand that their abilities can be developed.” according to Carol Dweck. She is a world-renowned Stanford University psychologist and in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success she discovered a simple, but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset.

Bill Gates wrote “Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”

If you make a failure “the end of the world” for kids, then it will be more difficult and they might find different ways to rebel instead of trying again to succeed.

In my opinion that on the long-run you might cause anxiety and fears from failure for kids if you punish them after a failure. Don’t start a “new game”. Help kids instead of banning.

Create Growth Mindset

If a child knows something, then don’t praise how smart she/he is for the knowledge, instead praise how smart she/he is that able to find out HOW TO succeed (e.g.: able to find the information fast, able to learn it). That’s how you help in life….because that’s not constant. People can develop and improve their learning abilities.

That’s how you teach Growth mindset.

Story Time – Learning Math

from Kyonjuro Rengoku

“In school, I used to hate math. Math was a nightmare for me and because of this I was told that I was dumb, multiple times.

Even in college I decided to study Biology just to avoid Math. Because I thought I was not smart enough to study any subject related to Math.

Recently I decided to do my Master’s in Management abroad to transition from Science to Business. As most Business Schools require GMAT/GRE, I had to take GMAT. To prepare for GMAT I had to study the very thing I have hated the most – Math.

But this time it was different. My parents were not aware that I was taking GMAT (I actually didn’t tell them so that they don’t put the pressure of their expectation on me).. I had no tutor.

I watched YouTube Videos, took mock tests and studied thoroughly to strengthen my basics in math. In the beginning even easy quantitative problems were difficult for me. But gradually, as I was learning the basics, my fear of math started to fade away.

The solution

Surprisingly I started to enjoy doing quantitative problems! I never thought math could be this much fun!!!!!

The first time I took GMAT I scored 35 out of 51 in the Quant section and the second time I scored 47.

So,

• How have I suddenly started to enjoy math?
• Have I suddenly gotten smarter?
• Has my brain gone through some kind of miraculous transformation?

The things that were different this time were, this time my parents didn’t tell me to score 51 out of 51..

This time I was okay with failing.

That’s why I started to enjoy doing math and learning about the basics, rather than solely focusing on the result.

This time I enjoyed the journey rather than focusing on the goal. This time when I got 35 in Quant no one scolded me or called me dumb.

So instead of feeling like a failure, I decided to try one more time and try even harder than before.

From my personal experience I can confirm that, grounding your son will lead him to believe that failing is bad.

As a result in his next exam he will be under extreme pressure and this will probably lead to another failure. In worst case scenario, he will grow up with anxiety and low self-esteem, which can have a negative impact in his career in future.

So instead of punishing him, tell him that failing is okay and it can be one of the best ways to learn about our weaknesses.

Turn failures into success

Understanding why someone failed on an exam and helping to turn failure into success is a very good idea. Don’t put extreme pressure and expectations on kids.

“It has taken me almost 20 years to overcome my anxiety issue and I am still afraid to fail. Bad parenting can cause long term damage to mental health.. Trust me.”

All in all learning new skills & growth mindset is the key for a bright future and self-development.

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