Parents who see failure as negative bring up children who do not believe they can improve, research suggests

Researchers from Stanford University concluded that parents who believe faliure to be debilitating are more likely to have children who believe they cannot improve

Rachael Pells
Friday 10 June 2016 12:55 BST
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Children's beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable robustly influence their motivation and learning, research suggests
Children's beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable robustly influence their motivation and learning, research suggests

Parents who believe failure is harmful have children who think ability is fixed, and risk hindering their determination to succeed, new research suggests.

According to child psychologists, children respond better to setbacks when they believe that ability and intelligence are malleable rather than predetermined qualities – that is, when they have what is called a “growth mind-set”.

But while young children are unlikely to be overtly conscious of their parents’ inherent mind-sets, a new study published in Psychological Science journal suggests they do sub-consciously pick up on parents’ attitudes towards failure, in turn developing their own negative approach.

Stanford University psychologists Kyla Haimovitz and Carol Dweck surveyed 73 parent-child pairs. While parents' and children's attitudes to ability were not linked, parents who saw failure as a chance to learn tended to have children with the same growth mind-set.

Similarly, parents who saw failure as negative and not a chance to improve and grow from had children with the same fixed mind-set.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the way in which children reacted towards the idea of failure was found to be influenced by the negative characteristics visible to them from parents.

Further surveys involving greater numbers of children and their parents suggested that people with a more positive attitude towards failure tended to encourage their children to use the experience as a chance to learn or ask for guidance.

Therefore, mothers and fathers who want to give their children the best chance of success should treat failures and disappointment as a chance to encourage their children to try again.

“Our findings show that parents who believe failure is a debilitating experience have children who believe they cannot develop their intelligence,” the researchers said. “By establishing these links, we have taken a step toward understanding how children's motivation is socialised.”

“It may not be sufficient to teach parents a growth mind-set and expect that they will naturally transmit it to their children. Instead, an intervention targeting parents' failure mind-sets could teach parents how failure can be beneficial, and how to react to their children's setbacks so as to maintain their children's motivation and learning.”

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