Navigating fixed mindset reflections on parenting
Well, I'm still reading Carol Dweck's book, Mindset. I haven't recorded any voice notes recently because, well, it just kind of happens. When you're reading a book, sometimes you just absorb what's on the page and you don't have any reaction to it. You're just in complete learning mode. But today I was reading a section... Actually, let me go back a little bit further. She's gone into discussing how coaches deal with children and teachers, and now she's talking about parenting. I don't have any particular response to what she says about parenting, mostly because I'm not a parent.
But I do have a thought about what it's like to read portions of books that are about parenting, and a difficult pitfall that I can fall into, and I imagine other people can fall into as well. When you're reading a book that's talking about good or bad parenting, in this case, basically what Dweck is describing is how, without often meaning to, parents can instill a fixed mindset into their children, often through a judgmental mindset. Like, they inadvertently send the signal, if you don't go to Harvard, then I don't love you.
What can happen when you read portions of a book like this is... Actually, let me say this backwards from the way I was about to. It's really good, I believe, for parents to read a book like this, or people who plan on becoming parents, to understand these things. To understand ways to make their children happier, more successful, to enrich their lives, to allow them to be more competent, and to face challenges in the world better. Those are all great things, nothing wrong with that.
The negative aspect of it is, sometimes we can read these passages, and we don't read them as parents or potential parents, we read them as children. And when we read them as children, we can begin to look at these things and compare it to how we were raised, and begin to judge how we were parented. Which, in and of itself, is not a negative thing, but it can become a pitfall, and a way, especially for me, to maybe shuffle off some of my own responsibility. Oh, I'm like this because I was raised like this. I'm like this because my parents were like this. I'm like this because I was told this.
And in the context of this book, this is a particular note, because when I engage in this type of thinking, I'm engaging in fixed mindset thinking. I don't know if you caught it there, I'm like this. So there's this belief of this permanent state. It's like, I'm spoiled, I'm ruined, you know, it's too late type thinking. And that's a dangerous pitfall. So I've caught myself a few times starting to do that.
And what I'm trying to reframe it as is, I took these lessons, but I don't have to keep them. I took this meaning, but I don't have to live with that forever. And it's a subtle shift. But I think it's an important one, because it's important. What I've learned through this book is it's important to be able to understand that you can always change, you can always grow as long as you're willing to accept the challenge.
So I think, yeah, I guess I just wanted to share that sometimes it's very easy when reading about parenting stuff to slip into judging the way that you were parented. And kind of getting lost in that and living in that state, which is not a good state to live in. Okay. Talk to you soon.