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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wish I knew the answer. Have been doing the "praise the effort" routine for a long time, but that hasn't done the job.[/quote]

Are you being very specific?

I've noticed that helps my DD (age 8) a lot.

For example, she's a perfectionist when it comes to writing.  She won't actually write anything unless she knows she can spell it properly.  This means that her writing can't even remotely keep up with her ideas because she self-edits everything down to more basic words she can spell before she even puts the pencil to the paper.

I tried encouraging her to "just write it, even if you can't spell it right," but that went nowhere.

So I focused instead on her spelling words each week.  They were easy last year (2nd) but are qutie hard this year.

Each Monday after dinner, she does a "pre-test".  I read the 24 words and she writes them as well as she can.  The whole idea is that she's not "supposed" to know them yet, because she just got the list.  She's happy to do it.  I think because there are no expectations that she gets them right.  :)

Then SHE checks what she wrote against the list from school.  She puts a check next to the ones she got right, and she writes the correct spelling next to the ones she got wrong.

Then on Tuesday, she does some practice. She likes to write the words she missed a few times.  I think it helps her learn.  And then we do another quiz.  Inevitably, she gets more right this second day.  I ALWAYS point it out to her and ask why she thinks she got a few more right this time.  (Obviously, because she practiced them . . . but it wasn't obvious to her at all for awhile.)

Same for the third and fourth days.  By Friday, she knows all 24.  Some she had to work on more than others.  Some she kept on getting wrong.  But she made obvious progress each day (more correct words), and it was easy to point that out to her and connect it to her EFFORT (practice).

Two months into the school year, I don't need to point out that connection for her.  She gets it.  And even more exciting, she's HAPPY and EAGER to do the pre-test every Monday night to see her starting point (how many she needs to learn), and is equally eager to practice and try again the next night.

She absolutely has internalized the idea that her effort (taking the pre-tests and practicing the hard words) pays off (more correct words over time).  And so she's eager to do it!

We're also now starting to see this in her writing.  She's more willing to use harder words she can't properly spell the first time because she sees it as an opportunity to show it to us or her teacher and learn the RIGHT spelling if it's wrong.

I can't tell you how much of a leap forward this is for her.  She has always been a perfectionist, and I've long worried it will hold her back.  But she's becoming far less fearful of doing something "wrong" because she's learning that mistakes are (1) ok; and (2) an opportunity to learn to do something better.

FWIW, I'm not sure she was developmentally able to put these pieces together at age 6 or 7.  She's very bright but tightly wound.  But something clicked for her at the start of third grade.

My advice is to stick with it and be specific wherever possible.  Kids need VERY pointed examples of when their effort was the cause of their progress.  The general concepts are too abstract.  Things like "to get better you need to practice" and "mistakes are ok -- that's how you learn" and "you need to stick with it, not give up" just seemed to irritate her or go over her head.  But seeing a direct connection each day with the spelling words really seemed to make an impact.

Finally, I HIGHLY recommend Googling "Carol Dweck" and "growth mindset".  So much helpful advice and insights there.

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