How can you foster a growth mindset and resilience in kids when they face challenges or failures?

We are teaching our kids how to cope with life and make sound decisions. Failure is our friend, the key is to constantly ask your children what they learned from it. Tell them how proud we are, they were willing to try something new, others are scared to fail so they never try something new. Share stories from our past to try and relate not forgetting how we felt in the moment and then later realized what we learned. We could say, maybe you'll be smarter than me and discover this right away, instead of taking months or years to learn the lesson. Then tell them this won't be your last failure or disappointment but never be afraid to keep challenging yourself. Then ask them, what are you going to do now?

Fostering a growth mindset and resilience in young people can be challenging but there are several strategies that can help: Emphasize effort and progress over natural ability or talent: Encourage young people to focus on their effort and progress rather than their natural abilities or talent. This helps to cultivate a growth mindset where they believe that their abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication. Encourage risk-taking and learning from failures: Encourage young people to take risks and to see failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Teach them to embrace mistakes and view them as a natural part of the learning process.

Promote self-reflection and self-awareness: Encourage young people to reflect on their experiences and to develop a greater awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This can help them to better understand their strengths and weaknesses and to develop strategies for self-improvement.

Provide opportunities for growth and development: Provide young people with opportunities to learn new skills, try new things, and engage in activities that challenge them. This can help them to develop a sense of mastery and competence, which can be important for building resilience.

Model a growth mindset and resilience: Finally, it is important to model a growth mindset and resilience yourself. Show young people how you approach challenges and failures with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn and grow. This can be a powerful way to teach them the importance of these qualities.

I have a paperweight on my desk that says "Can Do." I purchased it at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. It is a reproduction of the Can Do paperweight that was on Lady Bird Johnson's desk. I bought it right before starting my doctoral program. Over the following 2.5 years, as I was working 60+ hours a week and writing my doctoral dissertation at the same time, there were so many times when I wondered if I could get it all done. I would look at the Can Do paperweight, and it would give me the energy I needed to keep going.

Asking open ended questions and guiding our kids to make their own decisions is essential. As managers in business, this is how we lead our teams, yet at home many seem to feel their kids are too young to get to the right solution themselves. I would argue that they are never too young, that training our kids to think through scenarios and create a plan, even if we don’t agree with the plan, teaches our kids to problem solve, have confidence in their decisions and also understand the consequence of their actions (both good and bad!).