In a world full of constant changes and challenges, equipping our kids with a growth mindset is like giving them a toolbox full of superpowers. In this post, we’ll share a dozen brilliant ways you can help to cultivate a growth mindset for kids. But before we get started, what exactly is a growth mindset?
A growth mindset is a belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents can be developed over time. Unlike a fixed mindset, where abilities are believed to be static, a growth mindset fosters a love for learning, the resilience to face challenges, and the perseverance to overcome obstacles. It’s about teaching kids that they can grow, learn, and improve, cultivating curiosity, courage, and creativity.
The importance of fostering a growth mindset in kids cannot be overstated. It’s more than just academic success; it’s about preparing them for life. It equips them with the attitude and strategies to approach challenges with confidence and resilience.
So, how can we help our little ones develop a growth mindset? Here’s a garden of ideas for nurturing this beautiful mindset in the hearts and minds of our children.
If you’re looking for a kid-friendly video that encompasses these growth mindset tips into a daily toolkit that kids can use, then check out our Growth Mindset Zen Den episode! It sums up all of these learning points beautifully.
1. Celebrating Efforts over Results
Encourage your kids to value the journey more than the destination. Celebrating their efforts, hard work, and perseverance, even if they don’t succeed, helps to foster a growth mindset.
One way of doing this is to encourage kids to reflect on their efforts more often. For example, rather than asking ‘what went wrong?’, try and find out ‘what went right?’. Even when the outcome isn’t what we expect, we always learn something along the way!
2. It’s Not About the Mistake – But the Response!
During the reflection process, it’s really important for kids to understand that mistakes are not the enemy; they’re stepping stones to learning and improvement – but only if we take the time to unpack and understand them!
Consider these two sentences:
- Everytime you make a mistake, you move closer to your goal
- Everytime you learn from a mistake, you move closer to your goal.
Acknowledging that a mistake has been made is brilliant, but acknowledging it and understanding where the improvement can be made is just as important.
3. Cultivate Curiosity
Encourage kids to ask questions, explore, and be inquisitive. Without curiosity, we would never try anything new! That’s why curiosity should be encouraged wherever possible – because it’s the seed of learning and growth.
Three ways to encourage curiosity include:
Invite Questions: Allow kids to ask questions, and show enthusiasm in answering them. If you don’t know the answer, explore and find out together.
Explore Nature: Nature is a fantastic playground for curious minds. Go on nature walks, observe the environment, discuss the weather, plants, and animals, fostering a natural curiosity about the earth and its inhabitants.
Read Together: Reading books, especially those rich in fantasy, mystery, and science, can open up new realms of curiosity. Discuss the stories, ask questions, and encourage kids to do the same!
4. Embrace Challenges
Let’s encourage kids to view challenges as exciting mysteries waiting to be unravelled!
When children are taught to be brave and embrace challenges, they learn to welcome unknown experiences, push their boundaries, and unravel their hidden potentials. It’s about fostering an adventurous spirit that sees challenges as lands waiting to be explored, filled with treasures of experience and learning.
Our ‘Spot the Spider Yoga Adventure‘ is a delightful way to explore bravery and face fears with excitement.
5. The Power of ‘Yet’
Teach them the magic word – ‘yet’. It’s not that they can’t do something; they just can’t do it yet!
This simple word can help maintain enthusiasm and motivation in learning.
6. Developing Persistence By Stopping Self-Doubt
Cultivate the power of perseverance.
Imagine trying to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes, the pieces don’t seem to fit, and the picture doesn’t make sense. But with patience, by trying different approaches, turning the pieces this way and that, eventually, the pieces start to find their place, and the whole picture comes together beautifully. That’s the power of persistence!
Self-doubt stops us from being persistent because we give up before we’ve even tried! So, if we can make the ‘I can’t monster’ go away, then it won’t hold us back from growth!
Our Cosmic Kids Zen Den episodes like ‘The I Can’t Monster’ can be a great way to encourage positive thinking and persistence.
7. Encouraging Flexible Thinking
Flexibility in thought is a cornerstone in the development of a growth mindset.
Flexible thinking is like being a master shape-shifter, where the mind can adapt, morph, and find its way through the maze of various challenges and problems. It is a cornerstone in the magnificent building of a growth mindset, allowing kids to view situations from multiple perspectives and navigate through difficulties with a sense of ease and creativity!
To foster flexible thinking, ask kids to ‘name three ways’ they might go about a particular task. Or, once they have finished a task (whether that’s a drawing, a lego set or even just tidying their room), ask how else they might have approached it, if they were to do it all over again?
Both reflection and forward thinking can be useful to encourage a flexible mindset.
8. Mindful Breathing and Relaxation
Let’s face it, cultivating a growth mindset when our minds are filled with strong feelings and emotions is almost impossible. Just like grown ups, kids need to be able to manage their emotions so that they can think clearly and make good decisions!
Practices like mindful breathing can really help kids to manage stress and approach problems with a calm mind.
Our Cosmic Kids Peace Out episodes like ‘Your Little Star’ and ‘Climbing Up’ are fantastic tools to introduce these concepts in a fun way. Or, to help kids to understand and manage their emotions and big feelings, try our ‘Be The Pond’ episode. It’s a video all about how our emotions can make us feel, and how we can be in control of them!
9. Exploring the World of Possibilities with Role Models
Using role models like superheroes to illustrate the growth mindset can be very effective!
Ask kids to think about who they look up to, and explain a bit more about why they consider them to be a role model to them. This gets kids thinking more aspirationally about the people they would like to grow up to become!
If you need a hand doing this, then our ‘Superhero Kids Yoga in Space – Iron Man’ episode is brilliant. In each episode, we introduce superhero powers as qualities we can all nurture and develop!
10. Positive Affirmations
Teaching kids to use positive affirmations helps in building confidence and maintaining a positive outlook towards challenges and learning.
If you’re looking for new and different ideas for positive affirmations for kids, we find that keeping them simple and making them fun is the best way to use them in practice. That’s why we’ve made our positive affirmation Banana Cards!
These cards contain 48 simple positive affirmations that keep things playful and visual. They’re perfect for keeping things light and fun, so that it doesn’t feel like a boring or forced task to use them in real life.
11. Setting Realistic Goals
Sometimes we all bite off a little bit more than we can chew! As grown ups, we can rationalise that maybe we took on a bit too much, but kids can see this as failing.
We can help kids to foster a growth mindset in the long-term by helping them to set realistic and achievable goals.
Whether it’s how much of a lego model they might be able to build at the weekend, to thinking that they can master a musical instrument overnight – we can help them to manage their own expectations. Achieving their goals step by step will boost their confidence and prepare them for bigger challenges!
12. Continuous Learning and Improvement
Foster a love for learning. Make them understand that learning is a continuous process, and there’s always room for improvement.
Embedding these practices into the daily lives of children with the help of engaging tools like Cosmic Kids episodes can make the journey of cultivating a growth mindset a fun and enriching experience. Remember, it’s not about being good or bad at something; it’s about growing, learning, and always striving to be the best version of oneself.
When it comes to building a growth mindset, every effort made and every challenge overcome makes a huge difference. So let’s nurture kids with the growth mindset they need and watch them blossom into resilient, lifelong learners! 🌱🌼🌟
