Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids – free printable
Looking for a meaningful way to build resilience and grit in your child? Want to encourage your kids during the school day? Try Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for kids.
“I can’t do it?”
“Will you help me?”
“I give up!”
Do you hear these things in your home? We sure do!
Does your child give up easily? Do you have a kiddo would struggles with anxiety? Does your child have a low-tolerance for frustration? We have kiddos like this in our family.
Even if it seems impossible, you can help your child learn to be more persistent, develop resilience, and look at challenges as opportunities rather than signs of failure.
And the truth is that it doesn’t have to an ordeal or complicated. It’s pretty easy to encourage your children. Just use the Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids.
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Growth Mindset for Kids
A few years ago, I learned about Growth and Fixed Mindset in the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. She is a Stanford researcher who discovered that while we attribute a lot of success to natural talent (fixed mindset), hard work and persistent effort (growth mindset) play a much bigger role that previously thought.
Teaching our children to have a growth mindset is totally achievable. However, this will take some inner work for parents. We need to shed these old limiting beliefs that are ingrained in our minds about ourselves:
- I can’t organize my home.
- I’m not good at sports.
- I don’t have time to read books.
- I’m just not techie.
All these statements are fixed mindsets about yourself. While it’s good to recognize what are your natural talents and areas for growth, as parents we don’t want to model limiting beliefs like, “I can’t do this.” So we need to examine our own beliefs to help our children learn to grow.
You’re going to have to believe that hard work combined with persistence is more important than natural talent. You’re going to have to get comfortable with your children making mistakes and failing. If you tend toward perfectionism yourself, you’ll need to start changing your own mindset.
Want to have Persistent and Resilient Kids?
Developing a growth mindset is the first step in raising persistent and resilient kids. And those traits are way more important that any academic achievement your child can make.
Persistent Children
To have persistent kids, we need to to give our children opportunities to fail and not rescue them from their mistakes.
Think about a toddler learning to walk. Your child fell a hundred times a day and kept getting back up.
Your child needs more opportunities to struggle and try again. Learning to make the goal in soccer, string small beads on a necklace, wash the dishes without making a huge mess are all opportunities for your child to make mistakes and then to try to learn to correct them.
Resilient Children
To have resilient kids, they first let them try again when they fail. Make “progress over perfect” the mantra in your home.
Celebrate mistakes because they are the catalyst for growth. My daughter’s first grade teacher would say, “Mistakes are magical because they are how we learn!”
A lot of life is the same: getting cut from the soccer team, forgetting to turn in homework, or leaving the towel at home for swim lessons. These are all opportunities when parents could intervene, but we can also choose to let our kids fail and develop coping strategies and persistence to learn the skills.
Power of Praise for Children
The main way parents can foster a growth mindset and develop persistent and resilient children, is to notice and praise progress over achievements.
You want to avoid making general and unspecific praise statements like “Good job.” You also want to avoid praising the outcomes, “You brought home straight As because you’re so smart” or “I’m really excited you made 2 goals in soccer.”
Instead we want to praise the persistence or resilience:
“Math has been tricky for you this semester but you’ve practiced and your hard work paid off.” Or “I know you missed a goal but you kept trying and that’s more important.”
Say This, Not That to Foster a Growth Mindset
We want to praise and offer advice to our kids but there are ways to do it that promote a growth mindset over a fixed mindset.
Here’s more examples:
- “You worked hard.” Not “You’re so smart.”
- “I see how you tried to spell ‘elephant.’” Not “Your writing is amazing!”
- “You solved the problem using drawing as a strategy.” Not “You’re so good at math.”
- “You got back on the bike today after the fall. That shows courage.” Not “You’re finally riding without training wheels.”
Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids
All this advice about growth mindset is well and good but what’s one practical way you can implement it in your already busy parenting life? Try Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids.
Let’s face it – going to school can be tough. There can be so much lunchtime drama for your children:
- What will be served for lunch today?
- Will the cafeteria smell bad?
- Where will I sit?
- Will someone laugh at me?
That a lot to manage.
When your child gets a note in his or her lunchbox, this provides some connection to the security of home and mom or dad. Lunchbox notes pack a powerful punch of security and encouragement.
However these Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids are much more specific and effective than the thousands of free lunchbox note printables available online. Instead of generic, “I’m proud of you,” you actually need to think though times when you noticed your child demonstrating a growth mindset. As your praise will be more specific, the notes will be more effective.
How to Use Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes
It’s really easy to use these growth mindset lunchbox notes. You just need a few basic supplies and a little time.
Supplies:
Directions:
- Print out the free Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids.
- Check out HP Instant Ink if you don’t have an affordable way to print.
- Sit down with your favorite pens for 10-15 minutes and think through when your child has demonstrated a growth mindset.
- Cut them out.
- Place one in your child’s lunchbox daily.
- If you child buys lunch, affix it to their snack or a notebook with removable scotch tape.
Recapping Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids
Here’s the summary for all my busy parents:
- A fixed mindset is the belief that abilities are based on talent and more or less hard-wired.
- A growth mindset is the belief that skills and intelligence can be developed through hard work and persistence.
- Parents need to model growth mindset themselves about their natural skills vs areas for growth.
- “Progress over perfect” can be your family mantra.
- Persistent children use a growth mindset to find more ways to try to learn new skills.
- Resilient children use a growth mindset to see failures as opportunities.
- Parents can use praise to focus on a growth mindset.
- Lunchbox notes are a tangible way to communicate this to your child.
Conclusion
If you want your children to stop giving up so easily or to manage their frustrations over failures better, try using a growth mindset. Teaching them that persistence and resilience are the keys to success versus praising their natural ability allows children to keep trying rather than giving up. Use the Growth Mindset Lunchbox Notes for Kids to encourage your children’s progress and growth during snack or lunchtime.
