Telling Kids They’re Talented Harms Them

PCA National Advisory Board Member Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. She graduated from Barnard College in 1967 and earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1972. She taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois before joining the Stanford faculty in 2004.

In this video, Dweck talks about how "parents play a key role in developing a child's growth mindset." Dweck's research shows that conversations between sports parents and their children should focus on the process of sports, such as "concentrating, practicing, improving (and) capitalizing on mistakes."

If conversations aren't about the process, then they can fall into dangerous territory. Dweck says that telling kids they are talented harms them because they don't think they have to work hard and are less likely to become equipped to overcome a setback.