Your Gifted Child
Gifted Children will often....
Avoid struggle
Give up when hard or not sure
Avoid challenges
Lose it when they get a B
Don’t know how to study
Refuse to try, afraid to fail
Growth Mindset
What should parents do?
Research shows that praising the process –children’s effort or strategies—
~ creates eagerness for challenges,
~ persistence in the face of difficulty, and
~ enhanced performance.
Next time you are tempted to tell your child that he or she is the next Einstein or future Picasso, stop yourself.
Instead,
Take the time to appreciate what they put into their work, not what the work means about their innate brains or talent.
Ask them how they went about it and show them how you appreciate their choices, their thinking process, or their persistence.
Ask them about strategies that didn’t work and what they learned from them.
Praise the effort and practice that produced the outcome.
When they make mistakes, use these as occasions for teaching them to come up with new strategies.
When they do something quickly, easily, and perfectly, do not tell them how great they are. Tell them, “I’m sorry I wasted your time on something too easy for you. Let’s do something you can learn from.”
Look for ways to convey your valuing of effort, perseverance, and learning—rather than some empty display of ability.
Instead of false confidence in fixed ability, these methods will foster an appreciation for the true ingredients of achievement.
Model struggle and failure:
When you make a mistake or have a failure, verbalize it to your child; INCLUDE what you will do…
Think out loud when you are struggling with a project, model problem solving.
Explain that you are unsure how something might turn out… cooking, gardening, fixing something.
Take responsibility for your mistakes/failures, verbalize to your child.