1. Make sure the child clearly sees the connection between his
own effort and school success. Children who perceive this
connection are more likely to respond to difficult tasks and/or
failure with less frustration and with positive expectations
about the outcome of the event. 2. Make sure that you define
"effort" correctly, telling the student that effort is spending
effective and strategic time on the learning task. Just trying
harder or spending time doing random activities that are not
working is not effective effort. Effective and strategic effort
focuses on using learning strategies and procedures, that is,
trying hard in a particular way is what leads to success. When
the strategy or procedure that the child is trying is not
working, we tell him or her to try a different strategy or
procedure. Teaching students to make strategic effort
attributions help them see failure and academic difficulties as
problem solving situations in which the search for a strategy to
use becomes their focus. When we train a