Do you want to help your child build a “can-do” attitude? Help them build a growth mindset!

First, a quick refresher on a growth mindset. A “growth mindset” welcomes a challenge and sees failure as a springboard for growth. It can be summed up as, “Look for the silver lining…and you’ll find one!” It also encourages risk-taking to maximize learning and personal development.

Positively reinforce a growth mindset 

• Praise effort more than “accomplishments.” With a growth mindset, we see effort, perseverance, and personal progress as a win. For example, learning to read a sight word for the first time, regardless of their grade in class. 
• Build a bank of your child’s wins, so they don’t get lost in the shuffle or overshadowed by the struggle. Write each one down on a slip of paper and keep them in a jar. Pull from the jar on a tough day and on New Year’s Eve.
• Put a whiteboard on your child’s bedroom door. Every day, write something positive about your child’s efforts on the whiteboard. Like when they are “caught being kind.”
• Keep track of wins with stickers or pom poms – when they get to a certain amount, go out for cocoa, bowling, or another small reward. 
• Anchor in the child’s triumphs with a song you play each time they overcome a challenge. “All Star” by Smash Mouth is a good one.
• Have a failure party. Celebrate when your child has turned lemons into lemonade!  

I hope this inspires you! Have a great day!

What is metacognition, and why do we need to master it? Metacognition is known as “Thinking About Your Thinking.” It begins at 8 years old.

People who “think about their thinking” can anticipate change, direct their own learning process, and learn more deeply.

Many Life Skills Require Metacognition

Metacognition is essential for many self-advocacy, relationship, and independence skills, such as:

• a growth mindset; it requires reflective thinking about how the individual learns and grows. 
• healthy self-regulation
• an understanding of the reasons for one’s behavior

And, academic achievement is another big bonus — research suggests students achieve at higher levels as their metacognitive abilities increase.

How to Strengthen Your Awareness of Your Thinking

Here are some techniques for strengthening their metacognition:

• Ask your child, “Was there anything confusing at school today? What was the most confusing part? Why?” Identifying one’s lack of understanding and the specific challenge is an important part of developing self-awareness.
• Allow mistakes and reward risk-taking. Failure, after all, is the first attempt in learning.
• Encourage and model brainstorming. Remember, if they can see it, they can be it!
• Give them opportunities to talk about how their thinking has changed with a “Traffic Light” chat. Ask your child about when they got stuck (red), met a challenge or tried something new (yellow), or learned something interesting (green). You can encourage metacognition with questions like these:
  • What did you learn?
  • How did you learn it?
  • How has your thinking changed as a result?
  • What worked or didn’t work when you were learning?
  • What do you want to do differently next time?

How will you encourage your child to think about their thinking today?

Children need our help in teaching them how to melt school anxiety. The most common signs of school anxiety are a change in sleep patterns, physical symptoms like a change in appetite, or asking alot of “what if “ questions. Here are three ways you can support your child and grow their self-confidence:

1. Reframe “smart.” 

There are many ways to be smart. And, your child’s ultimate success in life is not solely determined by their performance relative to their grade level. 

Work with your child to make a list of strengths that have nothing to do with grades. Consciously affirm and reinforce them to keep optimistic thoughts top-of-mind. 

2. One-size-does-not-fit-all. 

Figure out your child’s learning style with a quiz. It’s fun to have the whole family take a quiz. This helps to make it clear that there is more than one learning style.

Once you know your child’s learning style, you can better support their individual strengths and find more opportunities for growth in and out of the classroom. 

3. Help them with their “anticipatory anxiety.”

A child’s mind with anticipatory anxiety is a mind full of “what ifs.”

• What if my teacher does not like me?
• What if I cannot see the blackboard?
• What if I just don’t understand?

When you help our child bring those worries to the surface and name them, you can acknowledge their fear and then help them build coping tools. 

For instance:

• Teach them to reframe their fear, if possible, and develop positive reframes. 
• Visit the school during off-hours to practice classroom changes.
• Set up a parent-teacher-child conference and bring their what-if questions to the meeting.  

As you strive to melt school anxiety, take your child’s concerns seriously and watch their feeling of safety and security blossom.  

Good luck! And remember, progress over perfection. 

At the start of a new school year, anxiety frequently starts to pop up. If your child starts to show signs of worry, you are not alone. About 1 in 8 children suffer from anxiety.*

Here are three simple ways to help your child transition from worry into security and self-confidence, no matter how much they’re dreading school.

Reframe “Smart.” 

There are many ways to be smart. And, your child’s ultimate success in life is not solely determined by their performance relative to their grade level. (check out my personal experience here)

Work with your child to make a list of strengths that have nothing to do with grades. Consciously affirm and reinforce them. Here’s a fun strengths checklist and positive practice to keep optimistic thoughts top-of-mind.

One-size-does-not-fit-all. 

Figure out your child’s learning style with a quiz. It’s fun to have the whole family take a quiz, and it shows there is more than one learning style. Once you know your child’s learning style, you can start to support their individual strengths and opportunities for growth.

Preparation and previewing reduce new school year anxiety.

Another great way to start prepping for the year is by establishing your family’s relationship with your child’s new teacher. Whether your child will be learning virtually or in-person, it’s more important than ever to write up a letter together that shares a bit about them as a person, their learning styles, and any supports that have worked well in the past.  

If you can visit the teacher in person (or on a video chat), even better. The more you practice and prepare, the fewer questions your child will have, and the lower their new school year anxiety will be. 

Good luck! And remember, progress over perfection. 

*Source: Anxiety and Depression Association of America

Summer makes me feel like a kid again. 

Longer days, a more flexible schedule and more outside time, all remind me of when I was a child and I used to LIVE for the summer. Those few weeks between one grade and the other. I longed for the freedom of being ‘out of school’ and away from all the requirements. It was also a much-needed break from all the students who incessantly teased me. 

My mind could wander to a place where I felt safe and ok to just be me. 

Even though my family usually stayed close to home (we didn’t travel much at all growing up) I imagined visiting far-away places, California, Hawaii, New York, and Paris! I’d imagine I was performing on Broadway and enjoying every minute of it.

Living in the midst of this pandemic has been frustrating. But it has also pushed me to dream again, especially in summer. I’m thinking about all the interesting places I’d like to travel to: Italy, Spain, and Turkey!  

I’m also daydreaming about the types of classes I can take to energize my creative spirit. Right now, I’m considering dance, piano, and cooking. I’m grateful for these momentary respites.

I encourage you to dream again.

Talk to your children about their daydreams. Encourage their ideas with books, art supplies, course catalogues, and journals.

Daydreams are free, and you can dream anywhere. It definitely enriches and enlivens the spirit. Enjoy!

Resilience is an essential life skill, yet it is hard to give a child the opportunity to learn it.

As a parent or an educator, our instinct is often to shield children from failure or struggle. We hope to prevent them from taking the same missteps we took in our past.

But does this protection do more harm than good? We learn more from our failures than we do from our successes, so are we robbing children of important life lessons when we try to “fix” things for them?

I share my thoughts on the role of failure and how to foster resilience in this week’s video message below.

The instinct to help our students or our children when it looks like they’re “failing” can be a strong one. But what if I told you that resisting the urge to step in and help is one of the best things that you can do for your young person? Letting them work out problems on their own is an invaluable skill that they’ll use for their entire life.

In this video, I address how to foster resilience in children.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work,” Thomas Edison

It’s also important to remember that not everything has to be labeled as a failure! It could just be a roadblock, a change in direction, or even an experiment. When things don’t go as planned, try not to rob your young learner of the opportunity to ‘readjust.’ Remember to let children first try something by themselves, at a level that is age-appropriate, and step in only when they really need your guidance. Failure is an integral part of the path to growing up.

Now, I want to hear from you. How do you feel about this new way of reacting to your child or student’s struggles? How are you teaching them to be resilient already?

Let’s continue the conversation in the comments and on social media.