Weekly WINGS
Wisdom and Inspiration Nurturing Growth and Success
Studies from over 30 years ago on growth mindset and fixed mindset by Carol Dweck and others gave compelling data to back up the famous Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.”
For years, educators and parents (including me), and even coaches for adults have jumped on the bandwagon, teaching growth mindset as part of social-emotional learning curricula, along with building resilience, grit, and positive mental attitudes to help students and adults find academic, social, emotional and career/life success.
Parents, teachers, and other caring adults following the growth mindset movement have shifted from praising students for the results of their work to praising the process and the effort.
The premise is that by praising their effort, they will want to try harder and harder, and by just praising the result, they will give up unless the result is perfect.
Sounds logical, right?
Unfortunately, what sounds logical and helpful can actually be harmful when we aren’t looking at the bigger picture or considering all the ramifications of the theory.
Here are three reasons why I believe we need to re-consider the way we are teaching kids (and adults) to think their way out of failure and into success with mindset, and what I believe true growth really comes from.
Trying harder doesn’t always lead to success.
I’ll never forget my very first summer season on a fourth grade girls’ softball team. I was so excited to learn how to play the game, work with my teammates, and please the coach when he told us “keep your eye on the ball!”
In hindsight, though, I’m not quite sure why my parents thought signing me up for softball was a good idea.
I don’t have an athletic bone in my body. Gym class was my daily nightmare.
As a child, I couldn’t run a mile without stopping or even get my body more than a few inches off the ground when climbing a rope.
I’ve always been more of a nerdy, artsy, music and theater girl. Put me on stage and ask me to belt out a show tune – absolutely! Sports? Eh…not so much.
I mean… we did get to enjoy Fanta soft drinks out of a big icy cooler after every game and practice, so it wasn’t all bad.
Nevertheless, I was on a community team, and they assigned me to play Right Field.
Have you ever heard the song, “Right Field” by Peter, Paul, and Mary?
I first heard it many years after being a Right Fielder, and it was a painfully accurate description of my fourth grade experience:
Cause the fastest, the strongest, played shortstop and first
The last ones they picked were the worst
I never needed to ask, it was sealed,
I just took up my place in right field.
Playing right field, it’s easy, you know.
You can be awkward and you can be slow
That’s why I’m here in right field
Just watching the dandelions grow…
Watching the dandelions wasn’t too bad, but my worst fear came true whenever someone (usually a rare talented lefty) finally hit the ball straight toward me.
My stomach would always sink in panic as I tried desperately to shield my eyes from the sun and hold my glove just right… without ducking or flinching.
But no matter how hard I tried, I could never catch a line drive or a fly ball. It would always whiz past my glove to land with a disappointing thud in the grass.
Then I would go running after it frantically, huffing and puffing, pumping my chubby little legs, trying so hard to get the ball quick enough to throw it to first base… a split second after the runner triumphantly zipped right by on the way to second.
Each time it happened, my face turned bright red and I would brace myself for those inevitable cheerful smiles and dreaded words from my coach and team:
”Good try, Sandi!”
They might as well have said, “You suck, Sandi!”
I got a lot of encouragement and praise from my coach, my teammates, and my parents, but I never got better at softball.
I definitely had my mind set on catching that ball, but I never caught it.
I just kept messing up.
It was too hard for me, and I wasn’t getting better, no matter how hard I tried.
So even though I finished the season, I didn’t sign up for softball in fifth grade.
Maybe the coach could have spent more time with me working on my form, or I could have put in more practice time on my own or with a friend or family member. But after a certain number of humiliating mistakes, I just didn’t like the game any more.
Trying harder wasn’t helping me, so praising me for my effort was making me feel worse. It was creating a story of shame… not just in my mind, but in my body and in my heart.
This is how so many children feel when their parents and teachers praise them for their efforts.. on the field, in the classroom, and at home.
If they never see good results for their efforts, the praise becomes worse than meaningless… it becomes a constant reminder that they are not growing the way everyone else is.
Thankfully, I had a much better athletic experience in my sophomore year of high school when we got a new P.E. teacher for summer gym class.
Instead of praising us for “trying” to do sporty things I wasn’t already good at, she taught us how to set realistic, individual goals based on our current fitness levels, and then work incrementally and steadily towards those goals.
I was doubtful at first, but as the summer went on, I started to see myself getting just a little bit better each day. She didn’t praise me for trying, she just asked me to keep track each day and later report on my own progress.
When I ran my first full mile without stopping, it was a glorious day! Everyone in the class cheered me back to the bleachers when I finished… not for trying this time, but for actually succeeding at what I had set out to do!
The P.E. coach didn’t praise us for trying, she gave us tools and strategies for succeeding… at our own pace, in our own way, with our own autonomy, and without any pressure to “try” anything we weren’t 100% ready to try.
It didn’t matter that my fitness goal was tiny compared to everyone else’s goals. It was about doing what I could actually do, not what I couldn’t do … yet.
And that tiny but empowering word “yet” kept me going, setting higher, more ambitious fitness goals for the rest of that summer.
Many years later, I even completed a half marathon with my sister to raise money for the organization Train to End Stroke!
That tenth grade gym teacher gave me what I really needed to grow naturally…. not praise for trying, but a sense of confidence and growth of self-efficacy, which comes from real, actual accomplishments, no matter how small or individualized.
Empty praise is just as bad as punishment.
If you’ve been a part of the Heart-Strong International community for any length of time, you know that I believe that carrots (rewards) are just as bad at sticks (punishments/consequences) when it comes to motivating children (and ourselves) to succeed or to try something new.
As Dr. Ross Greene says, “Kids do well… when they can.” This means that if a child isn’t doing well, it’s not a motivation problem. It’s because there is something they simply can’t do… at least not yet, right now, or on a consistent basis.
While proponents of traditional parenting and teaching methods may try to convince us that “evidence-based” behaviorism is the key to solving their challenges, it’s impossible to reward (or punish) a child out of anxiety or a brain-body trauma response. Verbal praise just isn’t going to help anyone who is terrified, overwhelmed, or shut down because of a compromised nervous system.
Another problem with praise is that it comes from external sources, rather than internal resources. So, praising a child for trying makes them crave the praise and builds the belief that making others happy is the only thing that brings them true worth.
Then as children grow up and become adults, some of us internalize this idea and become people-pleasers and over-achievers.
Adults with a legacy of working hard to make their trusted adults happy may then spend decades working through the internalized trauma of never quite believing they are good enough simply for being who they are, not for what they have accomplished.
(Slowly raising my own hand now… anybody else?)
The bottom line is this: We don’t want to raise kids who are dependent on others for praise, motivation, and self-worth. We want to raise kids who know they are worthy deep inside their hearts… at every step and every stage of growth, no matter how incremental.
What children really need, more than just setting their minds to it and getting praise for trying, especially those with trauma, is much deeper and transformational than a positive mental attitude — they need wise leadership from inspiring adult role models who care about them, no matter what.
Over time, growing up in a safe, unconditionally loving environment infused with compassionate wisdom and inspiration will nurture even more growth and transformation.
And that’s exactly what we do here at HSI – we help trusted adults build their own strong wings of wisdom and inspiration, so that the children they care about will grow and heal trauma within natural cycles of rupture and repair, co-regulation and hope.
Over time, children inspired within the warmth of at least one consistently calm and loving relationship will be lifted out of trauma and despair into strength for a courageous and creative future.
We are raising children to be heart-strong while giving ourselves the same loving compassion and care to heal our own childhood traumas, too. Family trauma is generational and epigenetic, so breaking free from the chain starts with us re-parenting our wounded inner parts.
Growth is our natural state of being
ou know what makes flowers and other plants grow?
It’s not because the gardener stands next to them saying, “Good try! Wow, you are really putting in a good effort breaking through that soil and reaching toward the light!”
Even while some experiments have been done that seem to show (without conclusive evidence) that it’s better to speak kindly to plants rather than bullying them, we know from Biology I class that praise is not what really makes them grow.
What makes a plant grow is the DNA and chemical reactions inside the cells that makes a plant do things that plants do. It’s hard-wired into the plant to grow. It’s a natural, biological process.
The only reason a plant does not grow is because it’s not getting what it needs…. not enough light, poor nutrients or toxins in the soil, too much or too little water.
As Thich Nhat Hanh so eloquently said, “Don’t Blame The Lettuce!”
It doesn’t matter whether the lettuce has a growth mindset or not. The lettuce will only grow if its needs are met.
When we blame the lettuce for having a “fixed mindset” it’s not helpful at all. In the same way, when we blame children for not having grit or building resilience on a certain timeline and with our adult agendas and expectations, we negate all the challenges, barriers, and trauma many of them are dealing with.
We can’t “think” our way out of trauma by simply adjusting our mindset.
We need to go much deeper to find the source of the trauma, which is stored as beliefs in the body, speaks to us as the pain of wounded inner parts, and is released through somatic healing practices and in safe, healing relationships.
Children (and adults) will naturally grow when their needs are met and they are in the right nurturing environment, they have the skills they need, and there are no barriers to their growth.
We just need to hold a beautiful vision of their possibility for individual and unique greatness, give them what they need, and patiently wait for it to happen when they are ready.
A little bit of hope and a sense of potential and optimism is always helpful. However, limiting beliefs in our children (and ourselves) come from repeated failures and lack of resources to get better much more than a lack of motivation to try harder.
While we are nurturing them with confidence and hope and patiently waiting for our children to grow, we can also advocate for trauma-informed change, equitable systems, and better access to community resources for all families, especially those in marginalized communities facing extra barriers and obstacles to their growth and success.
Mindset can certainly be a part of growth, but it’s not the most important thing. I believe that what big and small humans really need most to grow well are these three elements coming together:
- Self-efficacy through small, incremental experiences of success.
- An environment of safety and access to all the resources they need to thrive.
- Caring adults who recognize like a patient, nurturing gardener that growth is the natural developmental process of every child.
When we observe the growth that happens naturally in our children, we can celebrate with them by telling them the story of their growth.
At HSI, we call this cultivating “Optimistic Narratives of Growth” which is more about noticing their accomplishments (and ours), no matter how small, and helping children (and ourselves) to develop greater self-efficacy by strengthening their internal awareness of their beautiful baby steps of their own growth and transformation.
HSI Certification Programs
HSI provides world-class Trauma-Informed Certifications programs for Trauma-Informed Specialists, Certified Parent Coaches, and Certified Educational Trainers.
Become a confident, trusted expert, and earn up to 10 accredited graduate semester units from University of the Pacific!
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- Are you a parent who needs a support with challenges at home?
- Do you have a child who has experienced lots of failure and feelings of hopelessness?
- Do you want to see growth and success as a family?
Consider Working with a Parent Coach!
As the Program Director at HSI, I only work with one or two private clients at a time, but there are also several wonderful HSI Certified Parent Coaches who would be happy to work with you! Just sent an email to Support@WingBuilder.com to ask for more information about parent coaching.
The Big Book List for Trauma-Informed Changemakers F
(First Edition)
Do you have our brand-new book list, uniquely organized by the Spiraling Stages of Growth? In it you’ll find 111 of my favorite books about real growth and transformation that happens in compassionate relationships… and, you’ll get a bonus mini-course on how to start your own book study or book club!
Check out my conversation with Debbie Reber on the Tilt Parenting Podcast – School and Developmental Trauma in Neurodivergent Kids!