Healthy Happy Mindset: The Power of YET - Essential for Both Parents & Children

In 2006, psychologist Carol Dweck wrote a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In it she talked about how a person’s mindset effected how they learned, how they processed information, and what that meant to their success in school, business, and even life itself. It became a popular theory used by many schools and educators to inform how they teach students.

Dweck considered mindset to be a self-perception or “self-theory” that people, especially children, have about themselves. Often, a student will consider themself “intelligent” or “unintelligent” and learn or act based on that assumption. They may even have the mindset that they are a good or bad person. Dweck’s premise was that people may or may not be aware of their mindsets, but it can have a strong effect on how they learn or acquire skills, there personal relationships, and their professional success.

She wrote about the Fixed and the Growth Mindsets. When we have a fixed mindset, we have a belief or set of beliefs that stop us from succeeding at a specific set of tasks. For example, when a student believes they are no good at math, they don’t believe they can ever be good at it, and they stop trying. They don’t believe in the concept of…YET.

When they have a growth mindset, even if math doesn’t come easily to them, they say, I am not good at math…YET! But I can be.

When I created Wishing Pixies, I had the YET in mind. I saw that many parents, like myself, needed some help to teach their children about the YET. Sometimes, the parents themselves didn’t believe that there was a yet in some aspects of their own life. They had the wrong mindset and were frustrated when they could not convey simple principles to their children. Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be considerate of others, your siblings, grandparents, teachers, your own parents.

Believe in yourself.

Young children are pliable. They can be molded and taught to learn and grow. They can learn that they are limitless and that something they are not good at in the present moment can be worked on. Skills of every nature can improve.

Athletes know this fact. They train at their sport or skill every day. Musicians, artists, craftsman, learn to improve their skills. Education is on ongoing thing. No one is good at everything, but anyone can get better at just about everything.

Wishing Pixies gives parents a chance to instill good behavior, positivity, and a growth mindset in their children by teaching them these things from the point of view of a Pixie Doll, a friend they love, trust, and learn to nurture. The Pixies need the children. They learn kindness and responsibility. Parents learn to communicate with their children in a different and fun way. It could be as simple as brush your teeth or eat your broccoli to as complicated as learning that every failure makes room for a learning lesson, that grit and determination gets you through things, and that there is always a YET.

No one is perfect. Not parents, not children. And everyone has many “yets” in their lives. We can all improve every day. We can learn new things. We can grow more confident, smarter, kinder, better at tasks, even happier.

Sometimes we just need a little Pixie Dust.