With Mindset as a big passion area for me, my house is seeped in the language and behaviour that I know to favour a growth rather than fixed Mindset. My daughter has a hemiplegia which is a form of cerebral palsy. This comes with challenges and is an interesting journey alongside the living of Mindset words and behaviours.

This evening showed me that all of this matters, particularly to a child who has physical challenges to overcome and sees her peers doing easily things that she finds more difficult. She has been desperate to achieve a totally upright handstand for as long as I can remember. She is now seven. She has practiced continually over many months and years. This evening, she did this (see photo) and not just once but over and over as she was so chuffed with herself! We were ecstatic for her as you could see the absolute joy in her little face. For many parents, you will see this all the time and will have been seeing it for some time if you have a child of this age. For us, this was a very big deal and an indicator of a lot we can say about our little girl.

We have never told her she can't do things and never will. We often say that she may just need to find a way that works for her and that is about us all having our own strategies. However, we also surround her with talk that emanates the ideas of the Growth Mindset and advocate practice, effort and perseverance if you want to achieve anything. That is down to choice - is there something you want badly enough that you will try and try consistently even when it doesn't happen immediately? Especially then.

This event is something that we can now come back to in the future to say, "Remember when you couldn't do a handstand and you wanted to do it so badly you practiced so hard?..."

Surrounding children with this stuff matters. As does a bloody good handstand!