Children form beliefs about their own abilities long before anyone teaches them about mindsets. They form those beliefs from how the adults around them respond to success, struggle and failure. That makes parents the most influential growth mindset teachers a child will have, whether or not they intend to be.
This guide explains what a growth mindset is in plain terms, what the research says about the parent behaviors that shape it, and what to do differently at the kitchen table. It pairs with a one-page handout you can print and keep on the fridge.
What a growth mindset means at home
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, describes two beliefs about ability. A fixed mindset holds that intelligence and talent are set traits: you have a certain amount, and that is that. A growth mindset holds that abilities can be developed through effort, good strategies and help from others.
The belief shows up when things get hard. A child with a fixed mindset experiences a difficult math problem as a test of whether they are smart, so avoiding it protects their self-image. A child with a growth mindset experiences the same problem as the place where learning happens, so sticking with it makes sense.
Two clarifications matter for parents. First, a growth mindset is not the belief that anyone can do anything, or that effort alone guarantees success. It is the belief that ability grows with the right kind of work. Second, children are not one mindset or the other. The same child can feel capable of growth in soccer and hopeless in spelling, and those beliefs can change.
What the research says about parents
Three studies are especially useful because they look at what parents actually do rather than what they believe.
Praise after success. In six experiments published in 1998, Mueller and Dweck praised fifth graders for either their intelligence or their effort after they did well on a set of problems. Children praised for intelligence then cared more about looking good than about learning, and after a setback they persisted less, enjoyed the task less, blamed their ability and performed worse than children praised for effort. In Dweck's later summary for educators, she noted that almost 40 percent of the intelligence-praised children misreported their scores afterward, compared with about 10 percent of those praised for effort.
Praise in the toddler years. Gunderson and colleagues recorded 53 families at home when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old and coded every instance of praise. Five years later, when the children were 7 and 8, the share of parents' praise that had focused on process (effort, actions and strategies) predicted whether children believed ability could be improved. Person praise ("good girl," "you're so smart") showed no relationship. The total amount of praise did not matter; the type did.
Reactions to failure. Haimovitz and Dweck studied 73 parent-child pairs with children in fourth and fifth grade. Parents' own beliefs about intelligence did not predict their children's mindsets. What did predict them was how parents viewed failure. Parents who saw failure as harmful responded to a child's hypothetical bad grade with worry about ability and less focus on learning, and their children were more likely to believe intelligence is fixed, according to the study summary. Children could accurately read their parents' feelings about failure even when they could not read their parents' beliefs about intelligence.
Research: The largest classroom test of growth mindset, a 2019 national experiment with 12,490 ninth graders, found that a short online program raised lower-achieving students' core grade point average by 0.10 points and nudged more students into advanced math, with larger effects in schools where peers valued challenge. The lesson for home is the same: the message works when the environment around the child supports it.
Growth mindset praise: what to say instead
Process praise is specific, true and about something the child controls. It does not have to be effusive. Here are common fixed-mindset phrases and growth-mindset alternatives.
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| "You're so smart." | "You figured out a way to check your answer. Tell me how you thought of it." |
| "You're a natural at this." | "You've put a lot of practice into this and it shows." |
| "Great job!" (alone) | "You kept going after the first draft didn't work. That's what got it there." |
| "Don't worry, not everyone is good at math." | "This part is hard. Let's find a different way in." |
| "At least you tried." | "That approach didn't work. What could you change next time?" |
| "You got an A! You're brilliant." | "You planned your studying over the week instead of cramming. That worked." |
| "You're the best player on the team." | "I noticed you kept your position even when the game got messy." |
Two cautions. Praising effort that produced nothing teaches children that effort is a consolation prize; connect effort to a strategy and a result. And do not praise constantly. The research points to the proportion of praise that focuses on process, not to more praise overall.
How you react to failure matters more than what you believe
Because children read their parents' feelings about failure so accurately, the most powerful change is in your first reaction to a setback: a lost game, a bad grade, a broken project. The reaction children need is calm interest in what happened and what comes next.
A simple three-step script:
- Name it without drama. "That test didn't go the way you wanted."
- Ask about process, not ability. "Which parts felt solid and which didn't? How did you prepare?"
- Plan one next step. "What's one thing you'll do differently before the next one?"
The script works just as well for your own failures. When you burn dinner or miss a deadline, say out loud what you will change. Children learn more from watching you recover than from any speech about resilience.
Growth mindset at home: ten routines
- Ask "What did you struggle with today?" at dinner, alongside "What went well?" Struggle becomes a normal topic rather than a secret.
- Share a learning story once a week. Tell your child about something you found hard and how you got better, including the part where you nearly quit.
- Add "yet." When your child says "I can't do this," answer "You can't do it yet. What have you tried?"
- Keep a strategy list. For homework, post three or four things to try before asking for help: reread the question, draw it, try a smaller example, look at a worked example.
- Celebrate the stretch choice. When your child picks the harder book, the tougher level or the new activity, notice the choice itself regardless of how it goes.
- Hold a "favorite mistake" moment. Once a week, each family member shares a mistake and what it taught them. Parents go first.
- Replace "Are you done?" with "What did you learn?" on homework nights. It shifts attention from completion to understanding.
- Let them struggle for a set time. Agree on a window, such as ten minutes, before you step in. Then step in with a question, not an answer.
- Track growth, not rank. Keep a simple record of a skill over time (reading minutes, times tables mastered, a drawing per month) so improvement is visible.
- Use the handout language. Print the companion handout and keep it visible so everyone in the house uses the same words.
Homework and grades
Homework is where fixed and growth mindsets collide most often at home. Three principles help.
Your job is coaching, not completion. If you supply the answer, your child learns that the goal is a finished page. Ask what the question is asking, what they already know and what the first step might be.
Treat grades as information. A grade tells you what has been learned and what has not. Ask to see the work, not just the number, and look for patterns: careless errors, misunderstood concepts, or a topic that was never taught clearly. Then help your child make a plan. Rewards and punishments tied to grades push children toward performance goals, which the praise research links to avoiding challenge.
Talk to the teacher about effort that is not working. If your child is working hard and still not progressing, the issue is usually strategy or a skill gap, not motivation. A teacher can often spot the missing piece quickly.
What not to do
- Do not praise intelligence or talent as a trait. It feels generous and it backfires after the first failure.
- Do not rescue immediately. Rescuing tells children you do not think they can do it.
- Do not label. "She's our artistic one, he's our math one" sorts siblings into fixed categories they will defend.
- Do not hide your own mistakes. Children who never see adults fail conclude that failing means something is wrong with them.
- Do not demand effort without offering a strategy. "Try harder" is only useful if there is a better way to try.
- Do not expect an overnight change. Mindsets shift with repeated experiences over months, not with one conversation.
Working with your child's school
Mindset language is most powerful when home and school match. Ask your child's teacher what phrases they use for feedback and mistakes, and borrow them. If the school uses a growth mindset curriculum, ask for the student materials so you can reinforce them. Our growth mindset toolkit for educators explains what teachers are working from, and the growth mindset activities collection includes several that work at home.
Growth mindset is only one of the beliefs and habits that help children learn. The confidence to tackle a specific task is covered in our self-efficacy toolkit, and the skills for managing emotions and attention are in our introduction to self-management.
Frequently asked questions
Is it bad to tell my child they are smart?
Occasional warmth will not harm anyone, but research with fifth graders found that praising intelligence after success made children choose easier tasks, enjoy hard work less and perform worse after a setback than children praised for effort. The safer habit is to describe what your child did: the strategy, the persistence, the improvement. That praise still feels good and it teaches something useful.
My child gives up as soon as something is hard. What should I do?
Treat the moment as a strategy problem rather than a character problem. Ask what they have tried, offer one new approach, and break the task into a smaller first step. Avoid rescuing by doing it for them and avoid lectures about effort. If giving up is frequent and across subjects, talk to the teacher; it may signal a skill gap that needs direct help.
What is growth mindset praise?
Growth mindset praise, also called process praise, names the actions that led to a result: the method chosen, the time spent, the decision to ask for help or try again. A 2013 study that recorded parents at home found that the share of praise focused on process when children were toddlers predicted whether those children believed ability could grow five years later.
Should I hide my own failures from my child?
No. A 2016 study found that parents' beliefs about failure, not their beliefs about intelligence, predicted their children's mindsets. Children watch how you react to your own mistakes and theirs. Saying 'That didn't work, here's what I'll change' models exactly the response you want from them.
Does growth mindset mean I should not care about grades?
Grades matter as information. The shift is in what you do with them. Instead of rewarding or punishing the number, ask what the grade shows about what has been learned and what has not, then help your child make a plan. Reacting to a low grade with worry about ability is the pattern the research links to fixed mindsets in children.
Sources
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (book page) Penguin Random House (accessed November 7, 2026)
- Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance (Mueller & Dweck, 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75(1)) American Psychological Association (accessed November 7, 2026)
- The Perils and Promises of Praise (Dweck, 2007, Educational Leadership 65(2)) ASCD (accessed November 7, 2026)
- Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later (Gunderson et al., 2013, Child Development 84(5)) PubMed Central (accessed November 7, 2026)
- What Predicts Children's Fixed and Growth Intelligence Mind-Sets? Not Their Parents' Views of Intelligence but Their Parents' Views of Failure (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016, Psychological Science) SAGE / Association for Psychological Science (accessed November 7, 2026)
- Parents' views of failure as good or bad predict children's growth and fixed mindsets (2016 news summary of Haimovitz & Dweck) ScienceDaily (accessed November 7, 2026)
- A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement (Yeager et al., 2019) Nature (accessed November 7, 2026)