PARENTS, TEACHER AND COACHES : WHERE DO MINDSETS COME FROM ?

            * Parents Teacher and Coaches : Where do mindsets come from ? *

No parents think, " I wonder what I can do to today to undermine my children, subvert their effort , turn them off learning , and limit their achievement."  of  course not. They think , " I would do anything, give anything , to make my children successful. " Yet many of the thing they do boomerang. Their helpful judgments, their lessons, their motivating techniques often send the wrong massage.

In fact, very word and action sends a massage. It tell children-or students, or athletes-how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed- mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am interested in your development.

It's remarkable how sensitive children are to these message, and how concerned they are about them. Haim Ginott, the childbearing sage of the 1950s through ' 70s, tells this story.
Bruce, age five, went with his mother to his new kindergarten. When they arrived, Bruse looked up at the paintings on the wall and said, " who made those ugly pictures ?" His mother rushed to correct him: "It's not nice to call pictures ugly when they are so pretty. " But his teacher knew exactly what he meant. " In here, " she said, " you don't have to paint pretty pictures. You can paint mean pictures if you feel like it." Bruce gave her a big smile. She had answered his real question: What happens to a boy who doesn't paint well?

Next, Bruce spotted a broken fire engine. He picked it up and asked in a self-righteous tone, " Who broke this fire engine?" Again his mother rushed in: " What  difference does it make to you who broke it ? you don't know anyone here." But the teacher understood. "Toys are for playing ," she told him, " sometime they get broken. It happens. " Again, his question was answered : What happens to boys who break toys ? 

Bruce waved to his mother and went off to start his first day of kindergarten. This was not a place where he would be judged and labeled. 

You know, we never outgrow our sensitivity to these message . Several years ago, my husband and I spent two weeks in Provence, in the south of France. Everyone was wonderful to us -very kind and very generous. But on the last day, we drove to Italy for  lunch. When we got there and found a little family restaurant, tears stared streaming down my face.I felt so nurtured. I said to David , " you know, in France, when they' re nice to you, you feel like you've passed a test. But in Italy, there is no test."

Parents and teacher who said fixed-mindset message are like France, and parents and teacher who send growth- mindset message are like Italy.
Lst's start with the  message parents send to their children-but, you know , they are also messages that teachers can send to their students or coaches can send to their athletes.

* PARENTS(AND TEACHERS)MESSAGE ABOUT SUCCESS AND FAILURE

Listen for the message in the following examples:- 

" You learned that so quickly ! You're so smart ! "
" Look at the drawing. Martha, is he the next picasso or what "

" You're like most parents, you hear these as supportive, esteem-boosting messages. But listen more closely. See if  you can hear another message. It's the one that children hear; If I don't learn something quickly, I'm not smart.
I shouldn't try drawing anything hard of they'll see I'm no Picasso. 
I'd better quit studying of they won't think I'm brilliant.

How do I know this? how I was thinking about all the praise parents were lavishing on their kids in the hope of encouraging confidence and achievement ?
You are so smart . You 're so talented. You're such a natural athlete. And I thought, wait a minute. Isn't it the kids with the fixed mindset-the vulnerable kids-who are obsessed with it ?

That's why  we set out to study this. After seven experiments with hundreds of children, we had some of the clearest findings I've ever seen: Praising children's intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their  performance.