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Growing Up with a Growth Mindset

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GROWING UP WITH A GROWTH MINDSET

By: Celeste Ezell | June 3, 2025

My 8-year-old daughter is the only one in the family with curly hair. She gets a lot of compliments, which invariably make her skin crawl, and she recently told me she didn’t want to cut it because people would notice and say something to her that would be embarrassing. She seems to feel shame when people note her appearance, but when people compliment her singing after a choir performance, she not only accepts it but also brags that she had to stand for hours! She's prouder of her accomplishments than traits she inherited.

As a mom and a 3rd grade teacher, I want to do my best to instill a growth mindset in the children in my care, so I’ve been thinking a lot about Carol Dwek’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The kernel of her advice: praise children for effort rather than abilities. Instead of saying, “You figured that out; you’re so smart,” say something like “You worked hard to understand that.”

A fixed mindset focuses on achievement, winning the game or getting the answer correct, and people who hold a fixed mindset believe that their abilities are fixed, perhaps even predetermined at birth. They often take a defensive posture, protecting a self image made fragile by the prospect of failure.

Children with a fixed mindset shy away from challenges when they fear they won’t succeed. For PE one day, I taught the students my limited repertoire of jump rope tricks including criss-crossing. Most students tried it, a few succeeded, but one gave up almost immediately: “I don’t jump rope.” No matter how much I encouraged, he would not practice anymore. Fixed mindset exhibit A.

A growth mindset does not worry about outcomes and takes on a challenge just for pleasure. Another child challenged himself to jump to a new record count, which he broke over and over again for weeks! People with a growth mindset give up outcomes, not sure if they’ll succeed or not, but are willing to try. A feeling of defensiveness would be out of place since the ability isn’t there yet – ability awaits effort.They stretch their capabilities to the demand of the problem. Rather than ask, “Can I do it?” they ask, “What would it take?” They work at the edge of their intellect and abilities, frequently enlisting experts to help and attain whatever skills are required to do the task.

In her recent revisit in EdWeek, Carol Dweck emphasizes that people are more likely a mixture of both growth and fixed mindsets. The key to growing a growth mindset is to identify our personal triggers. Feeling inadequate, criticized or jealous may lead to fixed thinking. We must capture these fixed mindset thoughts and change them to growth. Carol Dweck suggests we try adding “yet” to redeem negative thoughts. “I’m not good at climbing … yet.” “I don’t like broccoli … yet.”

Open Challenges

At our school, challenges are open to many possible solutions. This year K-8th graders designed marble mazes with a variety of obstacles, boxes of any shape that lock and pine wood cars inspired by mythical creatures. Odyssey of the Mind teams work together to plan and execute creative solutions to problems with no outside assistance from teachers or parents and present their creations or skits at regional tournaments.

Preschoolers can benefit from the same types of challenges. With a variety of recyclables on hand, challenge a preschooler to build a robot or a hide out. Ask him to re-enact a story with costumes or puppets. Ask her to make something to sell and create a sign to attract customers.

Quality Feedback

Our students thrive on encouragement and collaboration. They give presentations weekly and students offer questions and ideas for further research. They bounce ideas off each other to create collaborative inventions in the workshop. Teachers challenge students to earn awards for playing the recorder, completing their Greek or mastering the history content.

Watch quality feedback transform your child’s mindset. Acknowledge your child’s initial idea, motivation to try it, stamina to work for a long time, finishing a hard step, testing, troubleshooting and perhaps succeeding or failing, but learning from the process! Celebrate failures as much as successes because we often learn more from failure!

Modeling

The best way to instill a growth mindset in your kids is to practice a growth mindset yourself. Be open with them and share your process. Let them hear you transform your thinking, challenge yourself, and maybe they will give you some encouraging feedback. Following your example, they will grow a growth mindset alongside you. You and your children will take advantage of more opportunities and enjoy learning together!

Here are some books for you and your children to get you growing together!

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Fail-a-bration

The Boy Who Makes A Million Mistakes

The Girl Who Makes A Million Mistakes

Growth Mindset Workbook for Kids
I Can Do Hard Things: Mindful Affirmations for Kids

The Power of Yet: A Picture Book

Brightwheel blog

Celeste & Daniel Ezell are parents to three children who have attended, attend or soon will attend their boutique TK-8 school for gifted children. They founded Chronos Academy integrating all subjects to a timeline with creativity, music & making. You can reach Celeste by email at celeste@chronos.academy, follow them at @chronoscohorts or learn more at chronos.academy