Dweck's last comment really got struck me. By virtue of being taught to place authority and trust in the parent, the child generally wants to do what the parent says is "right". Some children, by virtue of their nature or peer pressure in their surroundings or whatever in addition to parental disapproval, begin to feel that negativity toward their interests reinforced. Had my exceedingly conservative grandparents and parents actually been able to "okay" my early interest in engineering and the sciences at the very least instead of telling me it was unfeminine (as well as my brother's early interests in fashion and mathematics, which were strongly labelled both at home and among our peers as faggy and uncool) I think both of us would have had less anguish and self-doubt and emotional issues as teens and in our early twenties.
If children are stubborn enough, they can overcome this kind of negative reinforcement at home of the societal norms they see expressed at school and throughout much of whatever culture they belong to. However, as is the case with other people I grew up with who had similar backgrounds, without stubbornness and the willingness to recognize where one would be most happy and useful it is possible to drift for a long time without understanding why everything about one's identity is orthogonal to how it feels it should be, or even to just end up in a mediocre paper shuffling job forever.
Imo it isn't about encouragement or positive reinforcement, but rather (as a parent) helping your children to figure out what they want to do and what they are interested in without projecting your own hopes and aspirations on them. Regardless of if your kid wants to live in a garage in Monterey and make sculptures of feet (or, hell, move to India and build water treatment plants, or study blue whales, or whatever), even if you think they'd make an amazing neurosurgeon/NFL player/xyz, don't push them to be something they're not. They get enough backlash from their peers and the rest of the world as it is.
Too many kids don't just quit STEM (or never start) because they're pushed out of it or excluded for one reason or another, too many kids go into what seems socially acceptable because they aren't allowed space to grow into whatever the hell they are.
If children are stubborn enough, they can overcome this kind of negative reinforcement at home of the societal norms they see expressed at school and throughout much of whatever culture they belong to. However, as is the case with other people I grew up with who had similar backgrounds, without stubbornness and the willingness to recognize where one would be most happy and useful it is possible to drift for a long time without understanding why everything about one's identity is orthogonal to how it feels it should be, or even to just end up in a mediocre paper shuffling job forever.
Imo it isn't about encouragement or positive reinforcement, but rather (as a parent) helping your children to figure out what they want to do and what they are interested in without projecting your own hopes and aspirations on them. Regardless of if your kid wants to live in a garage in Monterey and make sculptures of feet (or, hell, move to India and build water treatment plants, or study blue whales, or whatever), even if you think they'd make an amazing neurosurgeon/NFL player/xyz, don't push them to be something they're not. They get enough backlash from their peers and the rest of the world as it is.
Too many kids don't just quit STEM (or never start) because they're pushed out of it or excluded for one reason or another, too many kids go into what seems socially acceptable because they aren't allowed space to grow into whatever the hell they are.