Unlocking Children's Potential Part 2

The growth mindset opens a path of continual development. Moved by a growth mindset, a child isn’t discouraged by difficulties in Mathematics, or raising his hand and getting the answer wrong, because his intelligence will increase, he believes. And it does. His mind grows strong.

This mindset is really a belief one holds about themselves, a belief that is consistent with truths from psychology and neuroscience. Intellectual intelligence can be increased, what seems an obstacle today, can hardly seem so tomorrow, if one is willing to persevere.

The earlier we can coach a growth mindset, the better it is for the future man or woman. Beliefs strengthen with years. And how then, do we help children develop this mind set?

1.Be an illustration of the Growth Mindset. Model a growth mindset in the way you talk and act. Children are born into the world as imitators. Let them see that are you are not afraid to fail, that you expect to improve through practice. Attempt what is challenging, follow that intimidating recipe, build your own fence, make your own bread. And if something goes wrong, let the children hear “This didn’t go as I had hoped, but that’s ok, I will learn from this, and the next time, I will do it better” and if the children were part of the process say, “This didn’t go as we had hoped, what can we learn from this attempt, that will help us in the future?”.

2.Praise effort Instead of Intelligence. Dr Carol Dweck, a developmental psychologist, encourages parents to praise children's effort instead of their intelligence. When parents say:

“You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!”

You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!”,

Dr Dweck says what children really hear is:

“If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.”

“I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.”

Praising intelligence can actually harm children. To protect the labels bestowed on them— brilliant, smart— children end up avoiding hard things that would shatter their given labels. In other words, to remain “smart” they grow to avoid things that would make them look otherwise. But when children's efforts are praised:

“You must have worked hard”

“I like how you persevered with this homework. It required attention and persistence.”

Children learn that success comes through effort and commitment. And if they meet a difficulty in the future, they’ll know with well directed effort, it can be met. Coach a growth mindset today!

Unlocking Children's Potential Part 1

Early in their lives, children attempt more than their bodies and minds can perform— to walk, to draw realistically, to read and to talk. Unfazed by difficulty or failure, they attempt much, and achieve much. What seems hard at first— to walk, to read and to draw —soon becomes easier through effort, instruction and the development of mind and body.  These early difficulties are met with efforts that seem to echoe that 'growth will come', and it does, growth comes, quietly but visibly. Walking, drawing, and reading become easier! Children seem to display a growth mindset naturally, yet not all retain this mindset in life and in education.

At some point in time some children begin to develop a fixed mindset, where they believe their abilities, mental or physical, are fixed, and that no further development can occur. Had they had this mindset earlier in life, they would have been discouraged by their first attempts to walk, to read, to draw, and to talk; they would have avoided all these “hard” things where ‘failure’ was possible. This is how the fixed mindset finds expression; its victims believe that their intellectual and physical abilities are fixed. Held by this belief, they avoid ‘hard’ things and are happy in doing things that come easy to them. This mindset makes children lose interest in learning, and limits what they can achieve.

We would be sad to hear that a developing child has chosen to crawl for life, never to try to walk; that a developing child has chosen to remain a child in speech, never to learn about language; that a developing child has become content to scribble, never to try to refine his writing or drawing skills. We should be sad to hear that children who are past crawling and scribbling, who can still develop further, are developing fixed mindsets today. And more than our sadness this truth should be met with plans to help them overcome the fixed mindset. There are ways dear parent to help children retain or rebuild a growth mindset; this will be the subject of part 2.  

Smartphones Reduce Brainpower, Even When Turned Off

As children study today their phones are usually nearby: in their pocket, on their desk or in their hands. Whenever they are around them, smartphones have the ability to reduce their brain power. Periods of separation from them would serve learners well, during tasks that require their best minds.

In an experiment led by Dr Adrian Ward, researchers wanted to know whether the presence of smartphones can affect mental performance. Participants were to take two tests that measured mental sharpness. During the tests, they were subject to three conditions. Some left their phones outside of the test room. Others brought their phones into the test room but had them in their bags/pockets, and still others had their phones on the table face down. In all cases the phones were switched off. [1]

The students were then given two tests. One measured working memory capacity, which reflects the ability to focus on a task; and the other, fluid intelligence, the ability to reason and solve an unfamiliar problem. 

As you can see from the results, the students who did best were those who had their phones in a different room. Those who had their phones on the table did the worst, and those who had their phones in their pockets or bags came out in the middle. Researchers concluded poor performance was due to the brain using up attentional resources to inhibit automatic attention to their phones. Put another way, their minds were using up energy to resist the urge to be distracted by their phones, which left very little of their attention resources focused on the test.

The results led Dr Adrian to conclude that the “integration of smartphones into daily life” appears to cause a “brain drain” that can diminish such vital mental skills as “learning, logical reasoning, abstract thought, problem-solving, and creativity.” The impairment on our brains he says is on par with the effects of lacking sleep. [2]

Whatever affects our attention, affects our ability to learn, reason, problem solve and to think creativity. Attention is need for all these other mental processes to occur. [3][4] But why do smartphones have such a pull on our attention; why is it so distracting, you may wonder.

The costs of our smartphone are linked to the benefits they provide us, and how important they have become in our everyday life. Research in cognitive psychology tells us that as well as being a thinking system, our brains are also monitoring systems. They are continually monitoring our environment for things that are habitually important to us. For example, while engaged in a conversation, if you were to hear your name in the background, you would automatically orient yourself to the direction you heard your name. Your brain pays automatic attention to the sound of your name.

The experiment led by Dr Adrian Ward suggests that having our phone nearby is similar to hearing our name being called constantly. Our phones pull on our attention in the same way hearing our name said out loud does. In fact, studies have shown that the same automatic attention systems that are activated when people hear their name, are also activated when they hear the sounds of their phones, but not when they hear other people's phones.

During mental work, learners will perform better, dear reader, if they will have their phones out of sight, where they can’t compete for their attention. What has become a habitual way of using smartphones is also a way to diminish one's abilities to think, learn, reason, and problem solve.

[1] Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1086/691462

[2] Duke, Kristen, et al. “Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking (Even When It’s Silent and Facedown).” Harvard Business Review, 24 Apr. 2018, hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking.

[3] Wolf, M. (2019). Reader, come home: The reading brain in a Digital World. New York: Harper.

[4] Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: the hidden driver of excellence. Bloomsbury