How to focus on the process of learning

Psychologist & Author Carol Dweck, PhD, shares advice for parents on the importance of focusing on your child's learning process rather than their results and grades
How To Focus On Child's Process Of Learning Rather Than Results
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How to focus on the process of learning

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Many parents today think that they should prevent their child from making mistakes, prevent any possible negative feelings the child would have. But it's crucial for your child to make mistakes. But not just make mistakes; make mistakes that you enjoy and analyze with them and show them that mistakes are important ways to learn. When I was a young researcher, I was interviewing a little boy, who said, "You know, mistakes are our friend." And I thought, "Hmm, I never thought they were my friend." But I've learned so much from kids like this, because they understand that it's only through making mistakes and learning from them that you become good at something. All the Silicone Valley entrepreneurs who are now making millions and billions of dollars, they have a saying, "Fail early, fail often." They understand that mistakes are critical.

Psychologist & Author Carol Dweck, PhD, shares advice for parents on the importance of focusing on your child's learning process rather than their results and grades

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Carol Dweck, PhD

Psychologist & Author

Carol S. Dweck, PhD, is a leading researcher in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. Her research focuses on why students succeed and how to foster their success. More specifically, her work has demonstrated the role of mindsets in success and has shown how praise for intelligence can undermine students’ motivation and learning.

She has also held professorships at and Columbia and Harvard Universities, has lectured to education, business, and sports groups all over the world, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences. She recently won the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the highest award in Psychology. 

Her work has been prominently featured in such publications as The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, and The London Times, with recent feature stories on her work in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post, and she has appeared on such shows as Today, Good Morning America, NPR’s Morning Edition, and 20/20. Her bestselling book Mindset (published by Random House) has been widely acclaimed and has been translated into 20 languages.

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