Imagine we’re in an early learning program, working with a few infants with loose parts play using blocks with different shapes. Benjamin piles up 1, 2, 3, and then 4 blocks! They shake and end up tumbling down, and Benjamin scrunches up his face and huffs. Marisol is inspired by Benjamin and tries to stack a few balls; she’s amused and giggles when the top ball rolls off the bottom ball. She pauses for a bit, picking up different block shapes – a ball, a cube, a triangular block. She grabs a few triangle blocks and starts stacking them – 1, 2, and 3! Her little stack falls over. She’s surprised, yelps with excitement, and then curious, starts stacking again, a bit slower this time. A few tries later, Marisol was able to stack 5 triangle blocks! Huzzah! 

Working in early childhood education is truly a gift, allowing us to witness children’s growth as they bring their unique characteristics into play and develop new skills. As shared in the story above, we often observe distinct patterns in how children approach challenges, new experiences, and their own abilities – patterns that can emerge later in life. What influences some children to persevere and embrace challenges while others become discouraged by failure? 

In this Family Engagement Tip, we will explore growth and fixed mindsets, their impact on children and families, and strategies to promote a growth mindset in our work with families in ECE.  

Digging In: Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset 

In recent years, the “growth mindset” idea has become quite popular, particularly in education spaces. On that note, what exactly is a growth mindset?  

A growth mindset is the belief that our skills, intellect, talents, and abilities are qualities we can develop through our efforts, effective strategies, and with support from others (Dweck, 7). 

This mindset positively influences how we know ourselves, our self-esteem, creativity, ability to face challenges, our mental health, habit of stereotyping, and much more! It’s a “small belief” with a very BIG influence. A growth mindset values learning and resilience, knowing that focusing on the process and getting insights from our failures are instrumental for our journey.  

What about a fixed mindset?  

Fixed mindset is the belief that our skills, intellect, talents, and abilities are fixed or static qualities that can’t change. In other words, these qualities are set in stone (Dweck, 6).  

A fixed mindset is the opposite of a growth mindset. How does it influence us? A fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove ourselves over and over; “look smart, don’t look dumb!” Since we strive to hide weaknesses or flaws instead of overcoming them, this mindset hinders our development and change as there’s no space for us to enjoy learning or effort.  

Let’s explore: what does each mindset look like? How may these mindsets show up in our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors? 

The view we adopt for ourselves profoundly impacts the way we lead our lives. Consciously or unconsciously, whichever mindset we take up will frame our reality. If we believe we can, we WILL. If we believe we can’t, we WON’T. Either way, we are right because our mind has decided our reality will be as such. This is why we win when we pursue a growth mindset – it’s a starting point to make change possible in ourselves and our realities! 

Growth Mindsets in Early Childhood: What Does the Data Show? 

Our mindsets are cultivated and formed from a young age. We reach a default mentality about what is or isn’t possible about ourselves – this is why we have an incredibly rare opportunity to help guide young learners (and sometimes their families) towards a growth mindset. Before we can launch into practices and strategies, let’s peruse some of the research that has come forward around growth mindsets in recent years, especially the findings focused on young children and their families. Each research highlight is followed by an example we may see in early childhood education.  

 

In 2016, Haimovitz and Dweck shared research highlighting that parent’s beliefs about failure – specifically whether they view it as weakening or improving – had a more direct impact on their children’s mindsets about intelligence than the parent’s own beliefs about intelligence. If we can work with families so the adults in their children’s lives view failure as a chance to learn and grow, then we can encourage persistence and resilience not only in learning environments but life! 

This same study found that parents with this same view of failure tend to focus on their children’s performance and ability instead of their learning. This results in children having limited motivation to try new things or take on challenges. And yet, that is what a large part of growth and development means! In our early learning spaces, we provide that structured support for young children to explore, climb, run, jump, fall, spill, break, and more. Working with families to plant a growth mindset in their thinking (and children’s thinking) benefits young children in developing a positive attitude towards risk-taking, challenges, and growth.   

Example scenario: A 4-year-old child, Ashanti, is struggling to put together a puzzle and becomes frustrated. 

We often hear “great job!” or “you did so well!” and other encouraging praises around young children, offered by loving, caring adults in their lives! As shared above, 2013 research from Gunderson et al. found that parents who praised effort instead of ability helped their young children develop a growth mindset early on. This ultimately lays the groundwork for toddlers to reach elementary age with the capacity to develop their own strategies for improvement! In our early learning spaces, we can leverage this knowledge to encourage and model to families how focusing on progress over the end result can prepare their children to be self-guided lifelong learners. 

Example scenario: An 18-month-old toddler, Andres, stands up and tries to kick a soccer ball towards a small goal net. He swings hard and misses the ball, he swings hard again and kicks the ball too far left, missing the goalie net.  

That’s right, a growth mindset is not limited to academic and personal learning, it also extends to social skills and relationships! As Yeager and Dweck shared in 2012, when children believe their intellectual and social abilities can be developed, they tend to be more resilient when confronting academic and social challenges. Their research showed that believing or being taught that social attributes can be developed actually lowered adolescents’ aggression and stress when reacting to bullying or being excluded – and even resulted in better school performance! Those transitions in learning and social environments (i.e. peer pressure, new friendships, new environments) are more likely to flow with flexibility and perseverance when we foster growth mindsets in children early on.  

Example scenario: A kindergartener, Emma, has been having difficulty making friends in her new classroom. She feels shy and unsure about approaching her peers. During recess, Emma tries to join a group of children playing a game, but they don’t include her. She returns to the teacher feeling upset and discouraged. 

The Impact of Mindset During Tough Times

Now that we’ve learned a bit about the impact of parent’s mindsets on children’s development, let’s refocus on our early learning environments where this may come into play. A pioneer in growth mindset research, Dr. Carol S. Dweck, found that there were five specific situations where mindset makes a significant difference in the outcome, as outlined in the graphic below. 

A fixed mindset can not only stop us from bouncing back during difficult times, it can actually also prevent us from accessing our skills and inner perseverance, causing us to catastrophize or fall into a downward spiral. On the other hand, a growth mindset helps us process negative experiences with more grace and optimism, supporting us in tapping into our skill sets and grit. 

Mindset and Relationships  

Let’s take note that a growth mindset extends past learning and personal development. Yes, it applies to work and academic growth, but it goes further than that! A growth mindset also impacts our life skills like cooking, cleaning, exploring new places and transportation, navigating technology, delving into exercise and sports, how we approach our hobbies, our travel tendencies, etc. One aspect that we may miss when embracing and fostering a growth mindset in our environments is how applicable it can be to relationships! Family, friends, romantic partners, classmates, colleagues, students, teachers, OURSELVES, etc. – all the relationships we have are also impacted by us having a growth or fixed mindset.  

A growth mindset helps relationships thrive by promoting perseverance, better communication, and mutual support. This is particularly helpful for our relationship-building perspectives with families and young children, as we may experience a difficult experience or miscommunication within these important bonds which can be discouraging! With a growth mindset and a longer-term perspective, we can have faith and make the effort to strengthen and deepen relationships with families and young children in our early learning communities.   

As we can see, research findings show us that emphasizing effort over innate traits plays a crucial role in shaping children’s long-term attitudes toward learning, growth, and so much more! This is where we are reminded that partnering with families is a cornerstone practice with a powerful impact on our young learners. 

Growth Mindset Strategies in Our Family Engagement Efforts

Share approaches to help promote a growth mindset with families in your early learning program  

As we can imagine, developing a growth mindset in our young learners is an unparalleled way to support our generations to come! Let’s dive into this graphic of strategies to foster a growth mindset culture with families and in our program:  

Click the image above for the PDF version to explore this two-page resource!

Let’s remember QSLA’s core family engagement idea – “We are all doing our best, given our capacity, given our reality.” A growth mindset most definitely influences and expands our capacity and reality! Imagine how our relationships with families can evolve and create positive changes when we foster a growth mindset with families and their young children by collaborating with them! 

Inspiring a growth mindset in young children and their families is a powerful way to foster lifelong learning and resilience! By understanding the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset – and the science behind it – we can make a lasting impact on both the children and their family members.  Through practical strategies and supportive resources, we can empower families to embrace challenges, cultivate persistence, and celebrate progress to create adaptable learners ready to thrive in any environment! Let’s take inspiration from Henry Ford to close: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”  

Resources:

• The Growth Mindset Playbook: A Teacher’s Guide to Promoting Student Success 
• Sesame Workshop – How Children Build Resilience Resources Page  Spanish Resource Page
  Elmo Learns How to Build Resilience
  
• How to Instill a ‘Growth Mindset’ in Kids
• Growth Mindset booklists
• QSLA Growth Mindset booklist
• Growth Mindset and Enhanced Learning
• Exploring a Growth Mindset