I think that all of us here are discriminating enough not to throw the baby out with the bath water on everything that Dweck and others say. Obviously, kids need to be encouraged the push their boundaries and take risks. Of course, effort SHOULD be encouraged via praise.
Perfectionism is a risk for our kids and I am open to all and any suggestions for managing it.
But basically there are upper limits to potential as JonLaw so succinctly stated.
Agreed 100%... in fact, the baby-bathwater analogy occurred to me more than once during this discussion. Sure, Ms. Dweck may be saying some ill-considered things in support of her views, but it's also worth noting that this is becoming something of an industry for her. Regardless, I think we can discount some of her weirder statements and still accept that her core message is something of relevance and value.
And yes, there is definitely an upper limit, but the problem is, we don't really have an effective way to measure that. Like the AFQT, IQ is an imperfect measure at best, and the continuum is so large, that except for obvious, extreme cases, the concept of hard limits isn't really one with a lot of practical application.
