It’s sure starting to feel like spring! As our students begin to look to the end of the year, helping them cultivate a growth mindset to finish out the year on a high note is so important. Author Carol Dweck offers three great tips for parents and caregivers on how we can motivate students at the end of the year:
- Focus on progress: emphasize and help your child see just how much they’ve learned so far this year.
- Use that progress to motivate new learning: help your child use the motivation that comes from seeing their progress thus far to push through and learn the final concepts of the year.
- Connect your child’s learning to their own life: talk with your child about how they can use what they have learned in school in their day-to-day life. (Example: math concepts prove useful in bake sales and lemonade stands!)
Read Dweck’s full article on “Mindsets and the End-of-Year Slump” here. And as always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you or your student needs some additional support.
April Resources
- It’s common for kids (and adults!) to worry about things that are unlikely to happen. Example: “What if I fail this test?” or “What if she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore?” Helping your child learn to challenge these fears and anxieties is a valuable lifelong tool. Check out these 6 questions to evaluate worries. These are super effective questions that I use with students (and myself!) regularly and with great success.
- Have a behavioral concern about your child, but not quite sure where to start? Try the Child Mind Institute’s Resource Finder. This is a great tool that enables parents and caregivers to select issues and then see a curated list of resources based on the identified concerns.
- A strategy I often recommend to foster a positive and supportive home environment is having a regular family meeting. Family meetings are a way for members of a family to plan, problem-solve, and bond as a team. Children can learn so much during family meetings, such as listening, respecting differences, problem-solving, and more. If this concept is new to you, I encourage you to read this article from Positive Discipline – it covers what a family meeting is and offers suggestions for how to structure one.