Mistakes
“I have never felt I was wasting time. Science is a process of trial and error.
The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas.”
The Paper Girls Show’s Let’s Make a Mistake song encourages children to embrace mistakes, declaring, “Mistakes are what you make on the way to something great. That’s exactly what it takes to make the world a better place!” This theme of approaching mistakes as a natural part of the learning process is a thread throughout The Paper Girls Show.
This is a powerful message for children. Research by Dr. Carol Dweck shows that children often hold one of two mindsets - growth mindset or fixed mindset. Children with a growth mindset understand that they can develop their abilities over time and treat mistakes as opportunities for growth. By contrast, children with a fixed mindset believe that abilities are innate and unchangeable. Children with a growth mindset approach mistakes as “bumps in the road,” while their fixed-minded peers view them as roadblocks that stop learning in their tracks.
Research shows that your mindset significantly impacts your learning and achievement. Children with a growth mindset tend to seek out challenging work and persist in the face of setbacks. Further, they are more likely to feel intrinsically motivated, enjoying learning for the pleasure of it rather than just to reach an external goal. What’s more, they also tend to earn higher grades in school!
Given all of these benefits, you’re likely wondering if there are ways you can encourage a growth mindset. Indeed, research has shown many ways that adults can encourage children to develop a growth-oriented approach to learning in which they embrace mistakes as opportunities for learning. For practical ways you can help children adopt this important mindset, read below!
Teach Children That the Brain Changes as They Learn
Did you know that your brain never stops changing? The brain is made up of networks of neurons that send messages to one another in response to learning experiences. As you read the words on this page, neurons in your brain are sending lightning-fast electrochemical signals to one another in response. Neuronal connections that are used more often are strengthened over time, while those that are used less often are gradually weakened. In this way, when it comes to neuronal connections in your brain, it’s “use it or lose it.” Neuroscientists call this ability of the brain to change over time in response to experience neuroplasticity. Watch Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child’s Experiences build brain architecture video to learn more. Your brain’s architecture is built through a process that starts early in life and continues throughout adulthood. Each time you learn something, you are literally changing the architecture of your brain!
Research shows that you can support children to develop a growth-oriented approach to learning in which they approach mistakes as learning opportunities by teaching them about how the brain changes as we learn.
Video/Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
Learn about how the brain changes as we learn together
A great way to start is to watch videos about neuroplasticity with children, such as Class Dojo and Stanford’s PERTS Research Center’s Growth mindset for students video, Khan Academy’s Growing your mind video, or Senti’s Neuroplasticity video. After watching these videos, engage children in a conversation about them. Share what you learned yourself! Ask questions to check children’s understanding of core concepts, such as:
Can your abilities change over time?
Does your brain stay the same or change when you learn?
How can you strengthen certain pathways in your brain?
How is your brain like a muscle?
How do challenging learning experiences shape the brain?
If children are interested in learning more, they can read child-friendly articles about neuroplasticity as well, such as Neuroscience for Kid’s Brain plasticity: What is it?. Invite children to do a little research on how the brain learns themselves! They can then present what they’ve learned to you.
Engage children in maker activities about how the brain learns
To further extend children’s learning, you can engage them in hands-on maker activities related to brain plasticity. For example, they can try the making a brain activity shown in this I Have a Go’s How your brain works for kids video, or the activities in Neuroscience for Kid’s Make a neuron. Ask children to come up with their own ideas for what materials they can use to make a brain or neuron too!
Video/Mishu Drawing Academy
Looking for a hands-on activity that requires less supplies? Invite children to draw a neuron. You can look up photos of neurons to use as guides, or provide them with an instructional video, such as Mishu Drawing Academy’s How to draw a neuron video.
If they’d like, children can share their creations online, perhaps along with their own explanation of how the brain changes as we learn.
Offer experiential learning activities about how the brain learns
You can also create experiential learning activities about neuroplasticity that get children up and moving. For example, if it’s snowy, you can take children outside and invite them to walk along different paths, noting how the paths that they take most often become easier and easier to travel. This provides an analogy for how the pathways in their brains that they use most often become easier and easier for electrochemical signals to travel too. What other ideas do you have for teaching children this concept through movement? Get creative!
Remind children that the brain changes as we learn when they make mistakes
Once you teach children about how the brain changes as they learn, you can remind them of this whenever it’s helpful as they learn new things. This can be particularly useful when they have made a mistake and are feeling flustered or discouraged. You can take those opportunities to remind them that the brain is in the process of rewiring its connections - and that takes time! A powerful word to use in these conversations is: Yet. For example, if a child says, “I can’t make this,” you can encourage them to keep at it by responding, “You can’t make it, yet!” You can then elaborate on this with an explanation of how the brain changes as they learn, such as, “I know you can’t make it yet, but your brain is working on rewiring its circuitry so it becomes easier for you. Keep trying!”
Model a Growth Mindset
Research shows that modeling a growth mindset can encourage children to develop a growth mindset and approach mistakes as opportunities for growth.
Model a growth mindset yourself
First, you can model it yourself. Do you take a growth-oriented approach to learning yourself? As a quick check, take this Mindset Kit’s Mindset survey to reflect on your own beliefs. If you disagreed with the statements in the survey, you likely have a growth mindset. Great! If you agreed with the statements in the survey, remember that neuroscience shows that the brain changes as we learn and we truly can improve our abilities over time with effort. When we understand that our abilities change as we learn, we tend to adopt other beliefs associated with a growth mindset as well, including:
I truly believe that people can change
I like my work best when it’s challenging
I like work that I'll learn from even if I make a lot of mistakes
Once you’ve adopted a growth mindset yourself, model it. Show enthusiasm for challenging work. Share stories of times you have encountered challenges or made mistakes and how you learned from those experiences. Emphasize that everyone makes mistakes and it’s a natural part of our learning process. After you’ve shared your stories, ask children to reflect on a time that they encountered a challenge or made a mistake, how they responded, and what they learned from the experience. If they responded well, praise them for their tenacity. If they didn’t respond well, ask them what they could do differently in a similar situation in the future.
To get children up and moving, you can then act out the stories! Role play different scenarios with children in which you have faced a challenge or made a mistake and act out how you reacted. The children can play the other characters in the stories. Then, have the children act out their stories about challenges and mistakes, with you playing the other characters.
Alternatively, children could create puppet shows about the stories. First, you can have them make their own origami puppets of the characters in the stories. A quick google search will yield many different ways they can make puppets, such as those shown in WikiHow’s How to make an origami puppet. Once they’ve made their origami puppets, have them put on a show about the puppets facing mistakes or challenges. If they’d like, they can record these puppet shows and post them online.
Show how children’s role models have overcome setbacks
You can also model a growth mindset by talking with children about how people that they admire have made mistakes and faced setbacks along the way. To get you started, here are some stories that we find inspiring:
Who was rejected from film school three times? Steven Spielburg
Who was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she “wasn’t fit for television?” Oprah Winfrey
Who was fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination” and “having no original ideas?” Walt Disney
Who was cut from his high school basketball team? Michael Jordan
Who was defeated in eight elections? Abraham Lincoln
Look up children’s favorite role models and see if you can find similar stories of setbacks in their past that you can share.
The Paper Girls Show’s ‘Let’s Make a Mistake’ song mentions Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Rachel Carson, and Marie Curie as scientists who have followed a process of trial and error that led to great discoveries. Ask children to choose one of these scientists and research the process of trial and error that he/she followed. Then, ask them to tell their story in their own words - mistakes and all! They could write about the story or share it any other way they’d like. They could then post it online to inspire other budding young scientists.
Discuss how characters in The Paper Girls Show model growth mindset
The Paper Girls Show characters also provide excellent models! Ask children questions about how the characters respond to challenges and mistakes in the show. For example:
In episode 1, Caily makes a mistake on making a sensor for her fish tank and it causes the fish tank to overflow, ruining Reese’s fabric just before the fashion show! How do Caily and Reese respond to this mistake?
Do they give up?
Do they take a deep breath and regroup?
Do they ask others for ideas?
Do they try to address the challenge in another way?
What is the result of their response to Caily’s mistake?
What would you do in that situation?
Can you think of a time when you asked someone for help with a challenge you were facing? What happened?
Can you think of a time when you faced a challenge and came up with a way around it? Tell me about it.
As another example:
In episode 3, Jax gets a mice invasion! What do Caily and Reese do about this setback?
Do they do a little research to learn about mice and humane mouse traps?
Does their research lead them to an innovative solution to this challenge?
How would you approach this challenge?
Do you know how to do research to address an obstacle you’re facing? How would you do it?
As another example:
In episode 4, the team has trouble agreeing on what kind of robot to build. How do they deal with this challenge?
Do they seek out advice?
What innovative solution do they devise?
Have you ever had a disagreement when working in a team? How did you resolve it to move forward?
As another example:
In episode 7, Dev gets stage fright at Confetti’s Got Talent show and doesn’t play his instrument well. How does Dev respond to this failure?
How does Dev feel after the show? How would you feel if that happened to you?
What do Caily and Reese say to cheer Dev up?
Despite this failure, Dev decides to try out for a new band looking for musicians. What gives him the courage to do that?
Can you think of a time when you’ve had the courage to try again after a failure? Tell me about it…
Celebrate Effort, Not Talent
Research indicates that a simple strategy for encouraging children to adopt a growth mindset and embrace mistakes is to focus on the process of learning and celebrate their effort.
Give children process praise
Praise children for their effort during the learning process instead of their innate talent. Rather than telling children that they are “talented,” “gifted,” or “a natural,” emphasize the work that they are putting into learning. For example, “I’m so proud of you. You worked really hard on that,” or “I’m impressed that you kept trying even though you couldn’t do it at first. Good for you!” This kind of praise teaches children that effort is the key to success and they should persist when they encounter challenges or make mistakes. To learn more about the research on growth mindset and praising effort rather than talent, watch RSA Animate’s How to help every child fulfill their potential video. To practice giving this type of praise, try Mindset Kit’s Practicing process praise activity.
Now that you are familiar with this concept, it’s time to apply your learning to real life! Ask your child to choose a maker activity that they would like to work on. The Paper Girls Show and Taro’s Origami Studio’s origami activities or The Paper Girls Show and Curious Jane’s DIY videos provide wonderful options for them to choose from. As your child engages in the maker activity, make a conscious effort to praise their process and effort along the way as well as when they’re done. You can be mindful of using this type of praise anytime children are engaged in learning activities.
You can also demonstrate that you value effort by using this type of praise about others in front of children. This can include other people in their lives, or even characters! For example, if you’re watching episode 1 of The Paper Girls Show together, you can make comments such as, “I like how Caily and Reese bounced back after the fish tank overflowed and didn’t give up,” or “Did you notice that when Caily and Reese encountered a bump in the road, they continued to look for a different way forward? That’s wonderful!
Dance to songs that celebrate persistence in the face of mistakes
One fun way to celebrate effort is to find songs that encourage persistence in the face of mistakes or challenges, and get your groove on! If children are Bruno Mars fans, they might like to dance to Sesame’s Don’t give up song, or if they’re Janelle Monae fans, they might like Sesame’s Power of Yet song. Have a dance party to the Let’s Make a Mistake song with the whole cast from The Paper Girls Show! Children might enjoy choreographing their own dance moves to the Let’s Make a Mistake song, and then putting on a performance. They can record their dance, and if they’d like, share it online to inspire others!
Video/The Paper Girls Show
To learn more about how to foster a growth mindset, check out the further resources below.
Further Resources
Carol Dweck’s Developing a growth mindset presentation
Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success book
Carol’s Dweck’s The power of believing that you can improve TED talk
Character Lab’s Growth mindset playbook
Mindset Kit’s Growth mindset resources
Mindset Scholars Network’s research and resources
Mindset Works’ Growth mindset resources
Research Schools International’s Growth mindset research