Helping Your Anxious Child With A Growth Mindset
Does your child worry a lot? Do you have a little perfectionist who strives to do their best, but when they fail it’s as if the whole world is ending? Does your child struggle to make friends or prefer to play by themselves?
Then you might have an anxious child. Don’t worry! You can help your child calm their anxiety by helping them to develop their growth mindset.
It can be difficult as a parent or carer to understand exactly how to go about helping your anxious child. No one wants to watch their child suffer through worry, doubt, self-criticism or worse.
As a parent or carer, you want the best for your child. That’s a no-brainer. Of course, you want to support your child to feel calm and happy. But how can you do that? It seems impossible, right? Nope. It’s not impossible.
There’s a way to do exactly that! And it’s not hard at all.
Teaching your child to have a growth mindset can help them to deal with the anxiety they feel and to stop those nasty worrying feelings creeping into their mind.
With a growth mindset, your child can learn the best tools and strategies to cope with their anxiety. Cool, right?! A growth mindset can:
Help your child to ditch their fear of failure and feel confident to keep trying
Teach your child that learning something new is fun and not boring or scary
Build self-esteem because they are truly amazing
Help your child to feel brave and empowered
I know you want to help your anxious child be the best they can be. You want your child to learn the right tools to know when their negative thoughts aren’t helping them.
A growth mindset isn’t something that you learn once and then forget about. It’s a lifelong journey. And that’s the exciting part!
You can help your anxious child along that journey by enabling them to find strategies to deal with those bad thoughts and actions.
Here are just a few of the most effective ways you can help your child develop their growth mindset:
Teach your child to appreciate the process rather than simply the end result
Make sure your child understands that achieving their goals can be hard work, but persistence is key
Help your child understand that mistakes are part of the learning process. It's okay to make a mistake because it's an opportunity to learn
Encourage your child to put in the effort, because learning takes time and the path isn't always what we expect it to be
Praise your child's effort rather than simply their intelligence
It’s important that you support your child and take each step slowly. It won't change overnight, but it will over time.
It's all a learning process.
With your help, your child can use a growth mindset to calm their anxiety and feel happier, more confident and be the awesome little human being you know they are. And that’s what we all want.
Now go and start that amazing journey together!
