When it comes to learning a difficult topic at school, many parents like to think that with a bit of positive encouragement kids can ultimately master anything.
However, according to a King’s College expert Professor Robert Plomin, genetics has a very strong influence on academic results, despite the intervention of parents and teachers.
Challenging the so-called growth mindset theory developed by Professor Carol Dweck, which argues kids can develop skills through hard work and dedication, Prof Plomin believes “gowth mindset is greatly overplayed”.
“If you try to tell your kids who have trouble learning, ‘You can do it, you can change,’ you can actually do some harm. Because some kids are going to find it really difficult,” he explained.
While he is not totally against it, the professor concluded by saying: “That’s not to say that you can’t change growth mindset or you can’t give kids more grit. You can, and it’s probably not a bad idea at some level. But if you think that’s really what it’s all about. God, it’s just a tiny piece of the action. With grit we found it’s about 1 per cent of the variance."
“I don’t want to knock it, but what I don’t like is that it’s a silver bullet, a quick fix.”
