In a nutshell: Tell them that hard work is all that matters. Intelligence is a kind of muscle; it gets bigger and harder the more you use it. In other words, it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it. Intelligence improves with effort.
Or, even more subversively: intelligence improves with *belief.* If you really read that article, what you see is that kids' performance reflects what they *believe.* If they believe that working hard will make them better at something, they work hard and get better. If, however, they believe that their abilities are fixed, so they'll never be able to master something if they can't do it right the first time, then voila.
What if they were told that working hard would stop them from getting *worse,* but could not make them any better. I bet they'd proceed to work hard and make absolutely no progress.
Scary.
