I’ve been struggling with this lately with my kids. They get so focused on whether they win or get the best grade that they miss the whole point of trying hard and learning from mistakes. My 8-year-old will give up on math problems if they don’t get it right immediately, and my 10-year-old gets really upset when they don’t come first in sports even when they played really well. I know praising effort instead of just results is supposed to help, but I’m not sure I’m doing it right. How do you actually make kids understand that the trying part matters more than the outcome? Any practical tips that have worked for you?
We started having my kids tell me one thing they learned from each mistake. My son used to crumple up his homework, now he actually talks about what went wrong and tries a different approach.
This was such a challenge with my kids when they were younger! My son used to throw his pencil down if his homework wasn’t perfect on the first try, and my daughter would come home from soccer practice in tears if her team lost.
What helped us was getting really specific about what we noticed during the process. Instead of saying “good job,” I started pointing out things like “I saw you keep trying that math problem three different ways” or “You didn’t give up when that goal got blocked.” It took a while, but they started noticing their own effort more.
I also shared my own struggles with them. When I was learning to cook something new and it turned out terrible, I’d talk about what I learned from the disaster 
They needed to see that adults mess up and keep going too.
One thing that really shifted things was celebrating the “almosts” and improvements. When my daughter’s soccer skills got better even though they still lost, we’d focus on that progress. It wasn’t instant, but over time they started measuring themselves differently.
I totally get where you’re coming from! My youngest used to hide his art projects if they didn’t look “perfect” and my older one would get really upset about test scores even after working hard. What made a difference for us was focusing on the effort itself. Like when my son spent a long time drawing, I would say, “Wow, you really stuck with that even when drawing hands was tough.” For my daughter, I encouraged her to talk about the hardest question on her test and how she tackled it. We also started a little reward system where they get to choose a treat after finishing something challenging, no matter how it turned out. It’s been a few months, but they’re starting to enjoy the process more instead of just stressing over the results.
I’m dealing with something similar with my 5 year old. Even with simple tasks like sorting toys, she gets upset if it doesn’t look right. I’ve been trying to notice out loud when she keeps working on something hard, like ‘you tried that puzzle piece in four different spots.’ It’s slow going though. Do you think there’s an age where this clicks better, or does it just take time with any kid?
My daughter goes through the same thing with her piano lessons. She wants to nail every piece perfectly right away and gets frustrated when her fingers don’t cooperate. What’s been working lately is talking about how her brain is literally building new connections when she practices, even when it sounds messy. We started keeping track of how many times she attempted tricky parts rather than how well she played them. She actually asked to practice longer last week because she wanted to beat her attempt record from the day before. Sometimes I think kids just need a different way to measure what they’re doing.