Michigan State University Study Explains Why Kids Should Pay Attention to their Mistakes

Everybody makes mistakes and children are no exception. The most important thing is that we learn from them, most especially children. This is because the ones who learn from their mistakes and look at them as opportunities to learn are the kids who think they can still get smarter.

Researchers from the Michigan State University suggest that teachers and parents alike should teach their children pay more attention to their mistakes and learn from them, instead of shying away, according to Science Daily. And he kids who believe that intelligence is still changeable are more likely to focus on their mistakes compared to those who have a fixed mindset.

Hans Schroder, lead author on the study and a fifth-year doctoral student in MSU's Department of Psychology said that the main implication of the study is that mistakes should be used as opportunities to learn. The study involved 123 children who are roughly 7 years old and were interviewed to determine whether they had a growth mindset or fixed mindset, and their brain waves were monitored while they perform a task on the computer, according to LiveScience.

The study has found that children with the so-called growth mindset are the ones who had a higher likelihood to have a larger brain response after they commit a mistake, than those with fixed mindset. Researchers also added that children with this kind of mindset are more likely to improve their accuracy on a certain task after they made a mistake.

On the other hand, those children with a fixed mindset can only improve their accuracy on a task if they paid more attention to the mistake. The researchers concluded that while it is natural for parents to comfort their children they did something wrong, they should be more encouraging to their children to learn from those mistakes.