Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan.

If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.

Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don't tell you where a student could end up.

You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn.

So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.