Question: How do I help my child understand the importance of problem solving?
Dr. Kevin Skinner: Generally speaking, in situations like that, we teach children—as Carol Dweck suggests—to have a growth mindset. The growth mindset is: it's practice. We're learning. I don't expect perfection. Our children might be a grade or two or three behind; it's actually in helping them overcome that through energy and practice over time. So it may take more time and more practice, but this is the hardest part: sitting with them when everybody wants to give up and they're tired.
I'll give you a personal example. When I was a young boy, I think I got a D+ in English and my stepdad said, "That’s not acceptable." Now, a little bit more background: he grew up in a coal mining family where his mother said, "You’re not going to be a coal miner. You’re gonna go to college." And so he had to learn to put himself through college—how to study, how to work. He had to do those things.
So when I got a D+ in seventh-grade English, he sat me down and said, "This is not acceptable. Let me help you. Let me teach you how to study." I had never learned how to study. So he spent hours and hours and hours reviewing, studying, and learning with me. That was one of the best gifts my stepfather could have ever given me.
My point is, there's a price we pay to get involved in their lives—us creating an environment where we want them to see that we want to see them succeed. So we might need to hire a tutor in some cases. We might need to sit with them if we know how to do it.
I’ll give you another example of this. When my children got into eighth grade, I could not help them with math. It was beyond my understanding; it was over my head. So we had older siblings who had to teach the younger siblings how to do math because it's changed so much from when I was there.
So, finding people who can help with this—whatever their challenge is, whether it's math or English or whatever they’re not able to understand—get a team approach. Find people who can do it, and they can instruct and help your child develop the skill of getting through that. And I'm telling you, if they can do it and they can get that kind of confidence, then they get a belief: "I can learn. I can do hard things." And that's really what we're trying to instill in our children.
