Inside: Learn how a growth mindset in parents is the key to a child feeling successful.  

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Last night, around my family dinner table, we threw a party for my 9-year-old son.

We toasted him, we praised him, and we whooped and hollered.

My son, who can not spell well (his last spelling test was a solid ‘F’), just aced his first spelling test. 18 out of 18 correct.

And we were all overjoyed.

But were we celebrating the perfect score? Nope.

The ‘A+’ grade? Nope.

The lack of red marks he usually receives? Nope.

We were acknowledging how hard he worked.

We cheered his effort.

And we praised his ability to know that if he worked hard, practiced and studied, he could get better results.

We were celebrating his growth mindset.

 

Over the years I’ve learned that my son’s growth mindset starts with me.

It starts with how I talk to him about things he’s not really so great at… like spelling.

What is a Growth Mindset?

Last week my son declared to all who would listen, “I’m just not a good speller.”

He had finished a school-wide spelling bee where he got three words out of twenty-five correct.

So, on paper, which was all covered in red marks, he was right. He’s not a great speller.

But even though spelling doesn’t come easily to him, he can’t throw up his hands and think, “Well, that’s it. I’m not a good speller now so I’ll never be a good speller.”

Related: How to Take Your Kid from “I Can’t” to “I Can” 

Because what he didn’t know is that his ability to spell, or his lack of ability to spell, can change.

The skills he currently has can improve and grow as he learns, tries, and practices.

That’s having a growth mindset.

It’s the belief that if we don’t know something, we just don’t know it yet.

If we can’t do something, we just can’t do it yet.

And if we aren’t good at something, we’re just not good at it yet.

Related: The Power of Yet

A growth mindset is crucial because it empowers us to know that our limits aren’t forever limits.

We can overcome our weaknesses, poor grades, and less than stellar performances if we study, practice, and keep trying.

But most kids don’t naturally think this way on their own.

 

This kind of a mindset has to come from us, the adults in their lives.

And our words will shape how they approach every situation. For better or for worse, what we say will become the inner voice in their head.

So to develop a growth mindset in our kids, we need to develop a growth mindset for ourselves.

And we need to choose our words carefully.

A Growth Mindset for Parents

Yes, of course, I want my son to succeed in school. I want him to do well on tests. And good grades are always welcomed.

But much more importantly, I want him to know he can succeed in school.

I want him to understand that if he works hard, practices, and studies, he will show what he knows on tests, which will eventually translate to better test scores.

And I want him to know that an A is only celebrated because it shows he understands the material being covered.

So instead of applauding the A and the great test, we applaud the effort.

We applaud the hard work.

And we applaud the growth mindset.

But it starts with how we talk to them.

Instead of “I’m proud of you,” we say, “You should be so proud of yourself.”

Instead of “I’m happy you got an ‘A’” we say “You worked hard to earn that ‘A’” or “That ‘A’ tells me you really know your spelling words.”

Instead of “You did it perfectly,” we focus on the improvement and say, “You did so much better than last time” or “You’re getting better each time.”

A growth mindset for parents trickles down to a growth mindset for our children.

And we point out why he did better. We ask him why he thinks he got the ‘A’.

Which is crucial.

When our kids can recognize why they succeeded, they can replicate the steps they took.

For my son, he practiced his spelling words every single night for 20 minutes each night. He wrote them, he typed them, and he spelled them out loud.

Related: How to help kids study and succeed in school based on their personality and learning style

And he knows he got the ‘A’ because he consistently studied his words. He practiced and he kept going.

What happens when kids don’t succeed:

Often our kids won’t succeed.

If they’re trying new things or hard things, they will taste failure. Which is okay.

The day my son came home with his spelling bee “F” all covered in red marks I didn’t get mad. I didn’t punish him or tell him “he’s just a bad speller.”

Instead of admonishing the low grade, I pointed out his area of growth.

“This grade shows me you need help. It shows me you need more practice, more study time and help from me to understand it. Can I help you?”

Because that kind of language helps our kids know their lack of success can change.

It reminds them we are here to help them succeed even if they haven’t succeeded. Yet.

 

A parental growth mindset reminds me to keep putting the words into his head that encourages his own growth mindset so after he succeeds, he knows to keep going and keep growing.

He knows he can always improve, and can always get better.

And he knows it comes with hard work.

So yesterday my son came home with another spelling list and he had to start studying all over again.

But he knew that if he put in the time and the hard work, it would pay off again.

He knew he could continue to improve his spelling skills. Week after week. Spelling test after spelling test.

And you know what? He did.

He brought home another ‘A’ with not a red mark in sight.

His hard work and studying had in fact paid off.

So we threw another party.

“Stop touching me!!”

“You stop touching me!!”

“Ugh, I hate you!!”

“Just leave me ALONE!!”

Doors slam and I hear my youngest son wailing upstairs.

With my hands in my head, I think to myself…”I just can’t take this anymore.”

My boys have been fighting non-stop over the past few weeks.

I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s getting to the point that I can’t leave them alone for a minute before they start yelling and hitting each other.

When they are getting along, the family is fun, more enjoyable and just all around happier. But lately, it seems like those days are happening less and less.

These two are at each other’s throats every day.

Things are at a boiling point.

As I stand there I hear them scream “I hate you!” “You have to stop hurting me!”  “You’re so mean to me!” “You can’t tell me what to do anymore!”

What do I do…

I could charge into that room and lay down the law.

I could force apologies and send them to their rooms alone.

I could try to work out what happened and help them solve their problem.

The truth is that nothing has been working lately.

I pause and listen closer. Underneath their vicious words, deep down inside, I hear my kid’s hurting.

This is more than just one little squabble, there’s a profound and deep wound in my children’s relationship.

My kids don’t need punishment and discipline to solve this.  What they need is help.

It’s time for a sibling therapy session

I gather my thoughts and trudge upstairs.  I don’t exactly how this will go, but I have to try something.

I kneel down next to my youngest who’s crying and screaming outside his brother’s room and give him a hug.

He nestles his tear-stained face into my neck and says “Mama, I’m just so mad.”

“I know baby, I know.  I can see that you’re super mad right now and we’re going to discuss this.  Can you sit on the couch for a second while I go get your brother?”

I walk into his brother’s room and great him with a hug too.  I help him calm down and then hand in hand we walk over the couch too.

Get a free step-by-step guide of this process at the end of the post.

Getting the kids calm is important.  When they are flooded by emotions, they won’t be able to have a rational conversation, and that’s what we need right now.

Find ways to help a child calm down here –> How To Respond When Your Child is Raging Mad

Once everyone is calm and relaxed on the couch with me, I clearly explain what I’ve been noticing.

Reflect what’s been happening

“I’ve been noticing lately that you guys have had a really hard time getting along.  You both seem so mad at each other and you guys are arguing a lot.”

I check for clarification.  “Are you noticing that too?”

They both nod their heads.

“Okay, I’m glad we are seeing the same things.  Now, I can tell that neither one of you are very happy with one another and I think that makes you sad.”

Both of their heads are nodding.

“Let’s work this out then.”

Give each child time to talk about what makes them angry

“Now J, I’d like for you to tell your brother what he does that makes you angry.  E, I’d like for you to just listen and hear what your brother says, and you’ll get a turn in just a minute.”

• Pro tip- Don’t interrupt your child.  Give them the time to talk about things from their perspective (even if it’s different than what you’re noticing), this is the time for them to get stuff off their chest and to talk about their experiences.  This is not the time for teaching or parenting techniques.

I give J time to talk and then I ask E to repeat back his brother’s concerns so that J knows that E’s been listening.

Then I give E time to talk about what makes him angry and ask J to repeat back.

When both boys are done, I provide a summary for them.  “J it sounds like you don’t like it when your brother hurts you, and E you don’t like it when your brother tells you what to do and doesn’t let you say any of your ideas.”

Then I check to make sure both boys understand each other.

• Pro tip – This is a good time to check for clarification and to ask questions if you don’t quite understand what your child is feeling/saying.  Again, this is not the time for discipline.

Problem-solve together.

“Now E, J said he doesn’t like it when you hurt him when you get mad.  Can you tell us, what can you instead of hitting? J can you let E know what he can do instead?”

After a discussion and problem solving, we move onto E’s concerns.

“Now J, E said he doesn’t like it when you tell him what to do and don’t listen to his ideas, can you tell J what you’d like for him to do instead?  J what can you do so that your brother feels heard?”

• Pro tip – Stick with the “what can you do instead” phrase and focus on how to get his needs met.   As an example, instead of saying “don’t hit,” he needs to come up with solutions for when he does get angry, like going into his room, hitting a  pillow, or by saying “I don’t’ like that!”

After the three of us have problem-solved each child is armed with solutions and ideas for when these issues pop up.

Build connection.

Once each child feels heard and has more tools in their toolbox, it’s time to work on building a stronger connection.

“Okay J, now I’d like for you to tell me 3 things that you like or appreciate about your brother.”

• Pro tip – Again, let your child speak uninterrupted.

Then we give E a chance to say a few things he likes and appreciates about his brother.

This helps build connection because it’s important for the boys to hear how their sibling sees them in a positive light.

Continuing to Build A Strong Sibling Relationship

Over the next weeks, things took a drastic turn.

There was less fighting, less tears, and way less screaming.

For a few weeks after our conversation, I needed to remind them from time to time about their brother’s concerns.  “Remember J, E likes it when you listen to his ideas.”  “E, I can tell you’re mad, but remember that your brother doesn’t like it when you hurt him, can you tell him why you’re mad?”

It takes practice to use the tools they learned in our sibling session, and sometimes they just needed a little reminder about their brother’s concerns.

But, from that afternoon on my boy’s relationship has been so much better.

So much so, that every afternoon they drop their backpacks, head straight upstairs, and play together for hours.

They are still brothers and sometimes they do bicker, but overall, our house is calmer and happier.

All because the boys each felt heard, validated, and given tools they needed.

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Inside: Sibling Jealousy when a new baby comes into a family is a very real thing.  Get 12 simple tips to help your older child cope with a new sibling.

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When I was pregnant with my second child everyone starting warning me: “It’s triple the work so good luck…”

And they always said it with a hint of I-know-something-you-don’t in their tone.

And I couldn’t figure it out.

Two kids, twice the work… How could it possibly be more work than that?

I was seriously baffled.

Until my second child was born and a light bulb went off.

I finally got it.

You have to parent your first child and of course parent your second child.

But now you also have to parent your children’s relationship with each other.

You have to help your kids learn how to take turns and share a living space and to not rage with jealousy when you’re helping their sibling.

You have to parent the sibling relationship to ensure they’re being kind to one another, and want to be together, and can be left alone in a room without hurting each other.

Sibling jealousy is a very real thing.

Creating and maintaining positive sibling relationships between your kids takes a lot of work.

And parents can get a head start by building and laying the groundwork for this positive sibling interaction before your child’s new sibling is even born.

Why are positive sibling relationships important?

Positive sibling relationships are indicative of the overall mental health of your family.

If the kids are constantly bickering, teasing, and fighting, your home will be more chaotic and full of strife.

If you can encourage and then expect siblings to treat each other with respect and kindness, your home will be a more peaceful place to live. Which will make you a calmer, happier parent.

Siblings are our kids’ first friends.

For better or worse, they will share a childhood with each other and have something in common none of their friends will ever understand: being in our family.

Siblings will vacation together and play together and share all of their holidays and traditions with one another. It will all be more enjoyable if they like being together.

Siblings help us learn social skills and social cues. They learn how to turn take, and wait patiently.

They learn how to not hurt people’s feelings and how to apologize.

They learn they can’t take things that don’t belong to them without consequences.

Siblings who have positive relationships with one another will stand up for each other outside of your home.

The school playground is not always the kindest of places. Knowing there’s someone who will protect you, or stand up for you, or help you is extremely comforting.

When should you start encouraging a positive sibling relationship?

It is never too early or too late to start creating a more positive sibling relationship.

If you have older children, these 18 ideas will help you prevent sibling rivalry while encouraging and maintaining positive relationships between your kids.

If you have a newborn or are pregnant with your second or third child, these 12 ideas will get you started on the right foot.

How to Prevent Sibling Jealousy and Create a Positive Sibling Relationship:

1.Use very specific pronouns when talking about the baby:

To help my eldest daughter take ownership of our newest family member, when I found out I was pregnant I started calling him “her baby,” and “our baby,” and “your baby,” rather than “my baby.”

This simple switch was more inclusive and helped her with adjusting to the idea of a new baby coming into our house and our family.

It’s harder for sibling jealousy to happen when the baby feels like part of the entire family.

2. Read new baby and sibling books with positive messages:

We’re a family of readers, so it was only natural to get new baby books for our kids when we added a new family member.

We could read about what babies like and don’t like and what they would be able to do when they first come home. My kids were hoping to play with their new baby right away so we had to manage those expectations. Books were a great way to do it.

Our family favorites:

The New BabyThe Berenstain Bears’ New BabyWhat Sisters Do BestWhat Brothers Do BestThe Sister BookThe Brother Book

3. Enroll Your Child in a Big Sibling Class

Our daughter was so young when my son was born that she didn’t remember any of it. When my third was on the way, we enrolled our eldest daughter in a big sibling class at our hospital.

She got to dress and diaper a baby doll and learn how to help me when the baby comes. She was so proud of that certificate and was ready to be a big sister again.

Feeling empowered and part of the caretaking of a new baby can help children deal with sibling jealousy.

4. When your kids first meet, avoid holding the baby

I had read long ago that after you deliver your baby and your eldest child or children come in the room to see you and meet their sibling, it’s important that I wasn’t holding the baby when she walked in.

Keeping the baby in the bassinet when my daughter walked in helped me hug her tight with both my arms to reassure her that she could still fit in my arms.

To physically show her there was room for her still.

And while many things would change, her getting snuggles from me wouldn’t.

5. Sibling gifts

There were tons of new presents for the baby over the course of getting ready to have another newborn in the house. Between me preparing and the shower gifts, my toddler kept seeing stacks and stacks of presents that weren’t for her.

So we made sure to buy her a present we knew she would love and we told her it was from her new baby brother. Her eyes got real big as she tried to figure out how he was able to go shopping for her new book.

We also purchased a few keep-you-busy-presents that we would pull out whenever I was breastfeeding the baby.

She got to enjoy something special and looked forward to me feeding her brother as opposed to her demanding my attention when I couldn’t give it. 

6. Read Siblings Without Rivalry

Siblings Without Rivalry is hands-down one of the most helpful books on how to help prevent sibling jealousy.

Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too

It helps parents realize why siblings become jealous, and how we can shift how we talk to our children to reduce competition and fighting and increase cooperation.

7. Encourage older siblings to be helpers

To further increase my daughter’s ownership of our newest family member and to help her adjust to the changes, I implored her to help. I asked her to get me a diaper, or reach my water, or pour water over the baby’s legs during bath time to keep him warm.

When the baby was older, I asked my daughter to help feed the baby, read to the baby, and stack the baby food on the pantry shelves after grocery shopping.

And as my baby grew, my eldest started helping put on shoes, getting toys, and walking them to the car.

All of these times where it felt natural to help their siblings, set my children up for helping each other now that they’re older.

They know they can count on each other for assistance in reading harder words, reaching something high up, and learning how to balance on a skateboard.

8. Help your older child first

As a new mom, one of my worries was, if both of my kids are crying and need me, who do I help first?

Barring any real emergency, my knee-jerk reaction was to help the baby…help the most fragile, most in need of my help made sense to me.

But my eldest daughter was watching me. She saw I “chose” to help her sibling first, which of course felt “unfair” in her toddler mind.

This is a great way to foster sibling jealousy, which is NOT what I wanted.

So I started helping her first. When they both were crying, I hugged her, reassured her and loved on her first. The baby didn’t know that I “chose” his sister and everyone got the love and help they needed.

9. Let them be annoyed or frustrated with the baby

All of a sudden, our kids have to share us. They have to share our time, our energy, and our love. They have to share their home and their toys and their family.

It’s hard for a toddler or preschooler or even a school-aged kid to wrap their brain around that.

Let them tell you their feelings of jealousy, frustration or anger without dismissing it. It’s okay if they’re having those emotions and it’s better they share them with you than bottle them up or act on their emotions.

Empathize with them rather than brushing off their feelings: “I know. The baby needs me a lot and I can’t read to you as often as I used to. That must be frustrating. Can we read together right now?”

10. Set aside alone time with them

Because our time and energy is now divided between two or more children, our kids can easily feel unwanted, unloved, or unnoticed. Even if that’s not the reality, that’s their reality.

In our family, one way to combat that is to set up special Mommy and me time with my kids.

We go on dates or run an errand just the two of us, or we snuggle and read books without any interruptions.

It makes our kids feel special and extra loved and it’s a solid reminder that they don’t have to compete for our attention and our affection.

11. Start creating a strong family identity

We also work hard to create a strong family identity so that our kids feel part of something special so they want to spend time together, with their siblings.

Take family walks together, read books as a family together, or start a new family ritual.

When my son was born, my husband starting singing the song, Someone to Care For from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the two of them at bedtime which created an inclusive, you’re part of a bigger group ritual for my kids.

12. Create Siblings Books

Even after doing all of these things, my eldest daughter still didn’t love the fact that her siblings were now part of her world. Some days I think she would have been content to be an only child.

But that doesn’t work for me.

I need her to enjoy her siblings. Have fun with them. Want to be with them. Love them.

I need to stop the sibling jealousy in its tracks.

So I created a sibling book to help her realize how much she does enjoy being with her siblings.

To make one, I searched through all the pictures I had of my daughter and my son. I printed out pictures of them playing together, helping each other, and enjoying each other’s company.

I glued the pictures onto construction paper and wrote a first-person story about what was happening in each of the pictures:

I’ve known my brother Braeden his whole life.
I met him at the hospital.

(For Braeden’s book I used the same pictures but I started with: I’ve known my sister Addison my whole life. She met me at the hospital.)

When he was little, I helped him.
I fed him his bottle.
I gave him a bath.
And I read books to him.
Now that he’s older, we like to play with the same things.
We love to play with our water table.
We love to play with our blocks.
And we love to go to the park.
We both love ice cream.
And we both love Disneyland.
I love my brother Braeden, and he loves me.

I laminated all the pages and bound it into a book at a local office supply store.

Then we read the book every day.

And one day they’ll look back on those books I have now hidden away in storage and I’ll tell them the story about why I made the books.

I’ll remind them that they will always have each other and so they’ll always have someone they can turn to.

And that’s why it was so important to me that even though parenting the two of them was, in fact, triple the work, it was worth every second.

Because I gave them the best gift I could ever give them: each other.

Inside: Learn why encouraging a growth mindset in kids is so important and how one simple change can get your child from “I can’t” to “I can!”  This post contains affiliate links.

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My eldest daughter is extremely bright and has an incredible memory, which has served her well as a student.

She knew her coins and values before she was 2 years old.

She had her ABCs and sounds memorized, read well before Kindergarten, and devoured chapter books by 1st grade.

She knew her addition and subtraction facts and could spell any word she saw once.

You could show her once and she knew how to do it, so she never had to study.

She never really had to work hard to learn anything.

And everything came easily to her.

Until one day, it didn’t, and it was the end of the world for her.

Since she never came across a problem that was tricky for her, my daughter never knew what it felt like to not know the answer right away.

All of this “easy success” led her to have a fixed mindset about her learning and “I can’t” and “I don’t know how” became her new mantra.

Because she didn’t have a growth mindset, she was stuck. And frustrated.

And so were we.

Why should we encourage a growth mindset in kids?

Since everything had come easily to my daughter in school, she never had to problem solve. Academically, she never had to face something she couldn’t do.

And so in her fixed mindset, that was it…she wasn’t going to be good at third-grade math because she didn’t already know how to do it.

Two-step multiplication problems were her downfall. She simply threw her hands in the air and gave up with a boatload of “I can’ts” as she quit before she ever really started.

What she needed was a growth mindset.

A growth mindset is the belief that anything can be learned and improved on, if you work at it.

Her fixed mindset had her focused on the outcome only: whether she could do the problem or not.

But a growth mindset would focus her attention on the effort she put in to learn a new skill or try a problem different ways until she figured it out.

It would allow her to not know something but still find success at it if she worked hard.

So why is a growth mindset in kids so important?

Listen, not everything is going to be rainbows and unicorns in life.

Not everything will come easily to us or our kids.

When kids face a new problem, they can choose one of two ways to respond.

If they come to a problem or roadblock or obstacle and say to themselves, “Oh well. I can’t do it because of x, y and z so I shouldn’t even try,” we won’t get very far in life.

They won’t meet their potential.

If a child sees a problem as an opportunity to try something new, they say to themselves, “Well, I don’t know how to do it yet, but I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to keep trying until I get it.”

This opens up a myriad of opportunities for them in life and provides them with limitless options.

I choose option B for my kids because I want them to want to try new things.

I want them to see their failures or inability to do something as a temporary set back or as a stepping stone to get better.

And I want them to be lifelong learners who are willing to overcome obstacles, not just stare at them and say, “Oh well. I can’t do it.”

So how do you encourage a growth mindset in kids?

 I used these 5 tips.

But really, it starts with how I talk to my daughter.

The way we talk encourages a growth mindset in kids:

I thought I was doing everything right. I was praising her spelling skills and her reading skills and her math skills. I encouraged her to keep reading, to keep writing, and to keep counting those coins.

But I was praising the wrong thing.

I was focused on the outcome, not her effort.

I never once told her I loved how hard she worked on her math problems.

I never praised her work ethic or told her I was proud of her for solving problems when they felt “too hard.”

And so I missed the mark.

I unwittingly set my daughter up for disappointment and frustration when she couldn’t do a new problem or a new skill.

So we had to back up. We had to teach her how to have a growth mindset.

So we had to:

• change what we say to her and how we say it,
• build her up with phrases that encourage a growth mindset,
• let her know it’s okay to not know how to do something, and
• let her know we value the skills of figuring out the answer more than her already knowing the answer.

Get More Tips Here –> Check out these amazing Growth Mindset Tools

So we now praise effort rather than the outcome.

We praise her ability to try new ways to solve the problem, even if those ways don’t result in a “success” or a positive outcome.

And even when she is successful in solving the problem, we focus on her willingness to attack the problem, rather than her success when she got the problem right.

A go-to “praise phrase” in our house is now: “You worked hard on that! You should be proud of yourself.”

Because here’s the deal, life isn’t going to be easy all the time.

Our kids need to know they can have a problem and work their way through it.

And if they struggle now when the stakes are low, they will gain the confidence they need to work through tough problems and “survive” it.

Because I want my kids to be up for the challenges that life throws their way, whether it be calculus, learning how to ride a bike, or figuring out two-step math problems in the third grade.

And I want kids who say to themselves, “Okay. This is a problem. I don’t know how to do it. Yet.

But I know I can figure it out.

I am a problem solver.

I got this.”

 

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