We now have a term for the parents for whom failure is not an option: helicopter parenting.

I just returned from an education conference in Houston, ASCD 2015. One of our keynote speakers was Dr. Sarah Lewis, author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery. She spoke about the importance of letting kids experience failure, particularly in school, in an effort to spur some resiliency and determination—not to mention allowing them to learn from their mistakes.

Although we’re very familiar with the more famous examples of failure, like Thomas Edison’s 10,000 attempts at the light bulb or Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team, many parents still believe that failure is not an acceptable outcome to a pursuit. This is particularly true when it comes to our children.

Helicopter parenting

We now have a term for the parents for whom failure is not an option: helicopter parenting. Columnist Jessica Lahey relayed one of her old teaching stories in the Atlantic a couple of years ago. She once accused a student of plagiarism. When she confronted the parents, the student’s mother confessed that she had actually written the entire paper for her child (generously stolen from the Internet, by the way). It turns out that the concept of her child failing at anything had made the student put too many balls in the air. The mother stepped in to make sure one didn’t drop.

Grit might determine future success

Dr. Lewis referred to the ability to spring back up after a fall as grit and she described some case studies in which exercising grit might be one of our best indicators of the future success of an individual. That’s right. Not Common Core assessment or SAT scores. In fact, it can be extrapolated that it’s OK to not succeed at the things we think will make us successful—as long as we come back and keep trying.

A study from the University of Arizona found that adults who were “overparented” come out with a sense of entitlement and a decreased ability to overcome challenges. In other words, they don’t have as much grit as the adult who was allowed to struggle as a child.

What should you do?

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t offer help when your child needs it, especially if a particular struggle put them at risk of not reaching their potential (such as failing in school; sometimes a struggle is not conquerable without support). But think about just how much you help your child with their school assignments. Are they learning anything other than mom or dad will always bail me out?

If your child is having less of a struggle and more of a failure, steps need to be taken before future prospects are affected. Consider Athena for any support you may need.

Will they ever agree on a new, No Child Left Behind bill?

Anyone in education, including parents, are familiar with the law called No Child Left Behind. It’s the law that introduced teacher accountability, assessment, and school grading to the landscape. It’s important for parents to follow the possible changes in the law because it can affect your child’s school environment and how they will learn.

The original version, signed by President Bush in 2002, expired in 2007. Since then, both branches of government have floated ideas about the next version, but they never got any steam behind them because there was always another election coming down the road.

What the new law might look like

The new law might actually be coming this time, not because there isn’t another election (there’s always another election), but because the lack of a new NCLB has left the executive branch, namely the Department of Education, with new powers that Congressional Republicans don’t like.

The current proposal from House Republicans, rebranding the law as the “Student Success Act”, includes language for what is being called “Title I Portability”. This can drastically affect how your child’s school is funded. Instead of Title I money (extra money for poor and underserved schools provided by the federal government and distributed by the state) being allocated based on the proportion of kids who are on free/reduced lunch at a particular school, each poor student will have an amount that follows them to any school—including affluent schools.

This is a non-starter for Democrats. They see Title I portability as the first step toward a national voucher system that could be used to pay for private schools.

It might get done this time

On the other hand, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are working together on a bipartisan bill that has a chance to get more traction than the House bill. Title I portability was dropped in their bill by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-TN. That bill could reach the Senate floor later this month.

The other sticking point in a new law would be just how much assessment can our kids stand? Parents are becoming increasingly outraged at how much class time is used in testing and are voicing their opinions loudly to their elected leaders at both the state and federal levels.

The Obama administration actually likes most of what is in the current version of No Child Left Behind—including its assessment mandates—but Congress wants states to have more control over how much testing goes on during the school year. There’s room for compromise there.

It’s a good bet that something will get done this time. Republicans don’t like the power the Department of Education currently has and would rather some of that power be passed down to the states. The Obama administration wants a workable bill that continues many of the reforms that have occurred over the last decade or so. Chances are, the new law looks a lot like the old one.

Model growth mindset for your children.

This is the first in a series about conative skills, skills which help children in school that aren’t necessarily academic in nature. Conative skills not only help students in school, but adults in life.

You might have heard about a growth mindset through one of those positivity email strings, perhaps told through pictures of kittens hanging on to windowsills. Although that is a light way of broaching the subject, it is fairly accurate. Those with a growth mindset believe they will change the world. Those without believe the world is something that happens to them.

Having a growth mindset in school is important for a child. The student with one is constantly striving for better in all aspects of school in an effort to shape their life. The student without accepts mediocre grades, not being selected for the sports team, and a shallow social life without doing anything to rectify those situations.

Here are some ways to help foster a growth mindset in your child.

Model growth

The first step in teaching children anything is to model the behavior yourself. That includes the growth mindset. If your child consistently sees you trying new things, practicing difficult skills, and acquiring new knowledge, they won’t find it so weird when you or someone else suggest they try it themselves.

Notice the effort, not the result

Children with an underdeveloped growth mindset think they are dumb/slow/uncoordinated and there is nothing they can do about it, so they don’t try. Praising traits might give a temporary self-esteem boost, but won’t help a child grow. Instead, always make a big deal when they are working to better themselves—even if it’s a struggle for them right now.

Ask for stories, not opinions

The most common question at the end of the day is “How was your day?” Not only are you only going to get a one-word response, but you’re also missing an opportunity to talk about growth. Instead, try “What did you learn today?” or “Where did you try really hard today?” The story they will tell you opens up a lot more avenues into sharing your own experiences and helping them work through theirs.

Experimental Time

Set aside a regular time every week to let you and your kids experiment on a project. The only rule is there are no rules. It might be building something, trying something new, or experimenting with a different way of doing something. It might work. It might not. But it gives you an opportunity to model growth.

If I expected great things out of every child that walked through my classroom door, it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, even for the kids who had until then showed no promise at all.

When it comes to kids, it seems like almost all of them have a label now. If you don’t strive to provide one, school, the doctor, or your child’s own talents will. They can be both positive and negative—sometimes simultaneously. What should you do when confronted with a label?

Some context: my kindergarten daughter is gifted. I, too, grew up gifted before everyone had a label. In fact, there were only two that I can remember: gifted and the “r” word. I stood out, especially because once a week I was shipped off to the “special school” for gifted enrichment. Not only did I know the word, but so did all of my classmates. It was usually one of the first words out of their mouths when addressing me.

So when my daughter was identified earlier this year, I made the conscious effort not to use the word with her. I won’t until she uses it first (she will probably hear it at school; nothing I can do about that), and even then it will be sparingly and with official context. There’s a reason for this.

This great article from The Mother Company echoes something that I found out while I was teaching. A kid will become what you think they will become, and that becomes even stronger if you actually say what you think. If I expected great things out of every child that walked through my classroom door, it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, even for the kids who had until then showed no promise at all. And it often did.

This tends to have the opposite effect on kids with positive labels. You often hear about athletes “not reading their own headlines”. It’s the same principle. Tell a kid they’re gifted often enough and they’ll start thinking they can do no wrong.

As Christopher Brown from the National Fatherhood Initiative puts it, negative labels can destroy self-worth. Positive ones can over-inflate it.

So what do we do instead?

Explain the label. The day will come when my daughter will learn that she is gifted and that’s why she is pulled out of class once a week. Hopefully she’ll come to her mother or I for some clarification. Don’t be afraid to treat your child like a person. Explain why they have the label, what will happen in the near future (if anything), and that being labeled something doesn’t change who they are or what they want out of their future.

Recognize effort, not traits. This works for both positive and negative labels. Instead of telling your child (or someone while the kid is listening) that they are really good at multiplication, talk about the effort they put into their math work. This also shows the child that math success isn’t some sort of inherited trait; if they work hard in English just as they do in math, they’ll have success there.

Be more specific. If your child does something, state it by name. Instead of chalking up a success to being gifted (or a failure to being autistic, ADHD, or whatever), state it by name. “Wow, you really know your stuff about World War II.” That doesn’t say anything about the kid being gifted. “Don’t you think you can improve your sentence structure?” That doesn’t say anything about the kid being dyslexic.