Mind and Growth: A Psychological Perspective on Healthy Development
A 60-minute session on how we grow from children into adults: being compared and praised, protected and pushed, packed timetables and empty afternoons, the first big failure, and the day you realised you were the grown-up now. What actually helps a mind grow, and what only looks like help? Twelve independent cards; open three or four.
The opening question
What's one thing you can do now that the ten-year-old you would never have believed?
Everyone in the room answers this in one line before any card is opened. Write the answers down; you will come back to them.
The cards
12 ways into the topic
Each card is independent. Your group votes on which to open, and four or five is plenty for an hour. Behind every card sit three prompts, one at a time, that only appear once it is opened on the board. Unopened cards keep for next time.
- 1
Being Compared To Others
You bring home 85 marks. Your mother asks what your cousin got. Suddenly your 85 doesn't feel so good.
- 2
Praising Children
A child finishes a puzzle fast. Everyone says, “You're so smart!” The next week a harder puzzle comes along, and she won't even try it.
- 3
Talent Versus Hard Work
You've said it for years: “I'm just not a maths person.” Or a sports person. Or a singing person. Nobody ever argues.
- 4
Letting Children Fail
Your son forgot his lunch box again. You could drive it to school in ten minutes. Or you could let him go hungry till evening.
- 5
Overprotective Parents
You're nineteen and want to go on the college trip to Goa. Your parents say no. When you finally go to a friend's party, they call four times.
- 6
Marks And Self-Worth
Results day. You got 78 percent. Your best friend got 95. At dinner nobody says much, and you can feel it in the silence.
- 7
Kids With No Free Time
School till three. Tuition till six. Abacus, dance and swimming at the weekend. This child hasn't been bored in years.
- 8
When You Became An Adult
You're thirty. You have a job and a loan. But when the gas cylinder runs out, you still call your mother first.
- 9
Getting Over A Big Failure
You worked two years for one exam, one job, one dream. It didn't happen. Everyone else seemed to move on without you.
- 10
Telling Boys Not To Cry
A little boy falls off his cycle and starts crying. His uncle laughs: “Arre, boys don't cry!” He wipes his face very fast.
- 11
Living With Parents As An Adult
You're twenty-eight with a good job. You still live at home, and your mother still packs your tiffin. Your friend abroad thinks that's very strange.
- 12
Why Pressure Can Help
Your parents made you practise every single day. You cried, you sulked, you begged to stop.
The line to leave with
Which part of you is still waiting to grow up, and what exactly is it waiting for?
More boards,more ways in.
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