If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence, that creates a 'fixed' mindset. Over decades, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like this:Ī ' fixed mindset' assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.Ī ' growth mindset,' on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.Īt the core is a distinction in the way you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on kids. 'Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement.' 'The paramount importance of early math skills - of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts - is one of the puzzles coming out of the study,' coauthor and Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856 people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric Dubow found that 'parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later.' They tend to teach their kids math early on.Ī 2007 meta-analysis of 35,000 preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math skills early can turn into a huge advantage. Pulling from a group of over 14,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 to 2007, the study found that children born to teen moms (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish high school or go to college than their counterparts.Īspiration is at least partially responsible.

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