“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right!” - Henry Ford
I have been blessed with a little girl. I know that I speak for 99% of parents when I say that I could not have imagined a more perfect child. I love her endlessly. I am doing everything in my limited human power to ensure that she thrives and grows up happy, intelligent and kind. Of course, this is a tall order for an inexperienced parent, and like countless generations of parents before me, in addition to consulting books and grandparents, I am mulling over my own childhood experiences to glean the bits of wisdom that may help me get there.
I recently came across an article that resonated so strongly with me as a person, parent and Vocab Vitamins editor, that I am forced to share it with you here. The article is entitled: “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” but it is not fundamentally about how to implant your children in the Ivy League, but rather how to give your children the outlook to be able to tackle the challenges in their lives with confidence and achieve Success.
The article discusses the unpredictable and tragic consequences of calling a child ’smart’, namely that children will see intellect as a static attribute doled out at birth. The danger of this perspective is that when the going gets tough in any endeavor, intellectual or otherwise, such children believe that they have reached the limit of their natural ability and become hopeless. Children who are praised for their effort or acquired skills develop a flexible view of intelligence and ability and are more likely to put the necessary effort into a difficult problem and ultimately succeed.
I attended special schools or special programs throughout my education. My junior high school had ‘for the Gifted and Talented’ attached to its name. We were not geniuses, just kids who were excelling. It was a public school, and it was obvious that the powers that be tried to give us a boost with those loaded ‘gifted/talented’ words. But I bet many kids like myself walked away with the sad assumption that we have ‘X’ amount of gift and talent. I acutely remember thinking at many points in my education, ‘If I have to work so hard, I am not smart enough for this. I give up.’
Our American culture, in general, places great value on inborn talent, and much less value on hard-earned gains. In our society, it is embarrassing to try hard for a B, but somehow less embarrassing to do nothing for a B-. Actually, we don’t want our kids to work hard at all. School is embarrassingly easy until college. Parents complain about too much homework, and we never let our kids really flex their developing brain muscles, and show us what they are truly capable of — through hard work.
The highest hope I have for my daughter is that I can help her see how strong and capable she really is. And to start that process, I intend to praise her for her for effort, praise her for trying and failing, for doing her best, for working hard, for not taking no as a final answer, for carving her own path.
And this goes for adults too. Think you are bad at something? Stop giving excuses and work on it. Want to truly excel at something? Roll up your sleeves! With true effort, you have the power to change everything: how quickly you read, how well you eat, how far and fast you can run, how well you manage anxiety, time, deliverables, how much you weigh, and how ’smart’ you are. Can everyone become Shakespeare? No. But who knows how far one can get?
Pride in knowing that you are trying your best and the confidence that you *can* succeed with effort, will be your armor against all difficulty and setbacks.
Go get ‘em, Sasha!
