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The Stanford Professor Who Pioneered Praising Kids For Effort Says We’ve Totally Missed The Point

It seems the growth mindset has run amok. Kids are being offered empty praise for just trying. Effort itself has become praise-worthy without the goal it was meant to unleash: learning.

Would this be a case of broken telephone (optimist) or taking the easy way out (pessimist)?

It would be easier as a parent to soften the blow for a child who did not ‘win’ by emphasizing that their effort was the key part without having to address the growth part of the equation. You cannot point out that there is room for learning/improvement without also acknowledging that your kid is not the best at something. That may be a reason for stopping short.

The key to instilling a growth mindset is teaching kids that their brains are like muscles that can be strengthened through hard work and persistence.

I see some irony in this failure. The parents described as only focusing on the effort and not on the hard work and persistence needed for improvement are themselves not putting in the hard work needed to relay that message properly.

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