What’s more important for kids – a positive attitude or good grades? If you answered good grades, you may be wrong. Positive attitude seems to be a better indicator of future success, according to research.

Psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University reports his study revealed attitude is a better predictor of success than IQ. The study identified two core attitudes:

1. Fixed mindset
2. Growth mindset

People with a fixed mindset believe they are who they are and nothing can change that. This can lead to problems when they are challenged because they often walk away from situations because they feel hopeless.

People with a growth mindset believe they can change, as long as they put forth the effort. Since they view challenges as opportunities for learning, they often outperform those with a higher IQ. Even when people with this growth mindset face failure, they welcome it because it’s an opportunity for them to learn from it and use that information to succeed later.

Success in life is not about how smart a person is; it’s about how the person deals with challenges and failures.

While grades on tests and assignments can lead kids to more opportunities, what keeps them in those opportunities and succeed in them is a positive attitude. One that allows them to grow through the many unavoidable challenges and failures.

4 Tips to Help Instill a Positive Attitude in Your Children

1. Encourage Learning and Growth

When children do poorly on a test or assignment, do not relay your disappointment and move on to another subject. Instead, show children what they didn’t answer correctly, and teach it again. Show them that even though they didn’t answer it correctly, they can still learn from the incorrect answers. It’s important to do this on quizzes because children can learn from their incorrect answers, and then use that information on the unit test. When they score better on the unit test, they will realize it’s because they learned from their incorrect answers (failures) on the quizzes.

2. Teach Problem Solving Skills

It’s natural for children to walk away from something when they don’t understand it. Frustration isn’t a positive emotion. To help avoid children avoid frustration, identify when children feel this way and guide them back to the problem. Teaching them to face the problem and find ways to solve them will help them perceive challenges differently. They will see them as exciting rather than frustrating because it gives them a chance to understand and overcome them.

3. Congratulate Good Effort

Effort is just as good and sometimes better than results. Successful adults often put in a lot of effort in their endeavors, but don’t always succeed. They do succeed eventually, though. It’s all because they didn’t give up. That’s why parents should always praise children for good, continued effort.

4. Giving Up Is the Only Failure

Most people grow up with the mindset that failure is the ending of a situation. It is not the end. The only end is giving up when you fail. Teaching children this will help them see that it’s okay to fail. Failure is a challenge that must be overcome with problem solving.

As you homeschool your children, keep these tips in mind. With a different attitude yourself, you will be able to foster a positive attitude in your children that will help them succeed now and into the future.

Author Bio: Tyler Jacobson is a writer, father, and husband, with experience as a content writer and outreach coordinator for Arivaca Boys Ranch for troubled teen boys. His areas of focus include: straightforward parenting, education tactics, problems from social media, mental illnesses, detrimental addictions, and issues teenagers struggle with today. Follow Tyler on: Twitter | Linkedin