Our Kids Need Grit to Succeed

Today, we’ll start delving into the topics summarized in my last blog post – about what skills our kids need to succeed. It’s an area that has fascinated many researchers and educators. In this series, I’ll attempt to bring these thoughts to you in a succinct manner and add to each section what we as parents can do to help our kids be self-sufficient and successful.

The topic of the day is grit.

“Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity and plateaus in progress.  The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina.” Duckworth, Peterson, Matthew and Kelly, 2007.

Grit, or what many would call perseverance, is one set of skills that researchers realize impact students’ long-term success, just as much as academic skills and IQ. Researchers point to three areas that help promote grit, tenacity and perseverance. They are:

Academic mindset: how students see themselves as learners and their relationship to the learning environment. This includes their beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values and the ways in which they perceive themselves as learners. A gritty student sees herself or himself as students whose ability and competence grow with their efforts.

Effortful control: students often face tasks that are important for their long-term goal, but that in the short-term are not motivating to tackle. Successful students – ones that are more likely to achieve the long-term goal - have the willpower to funnel their attention into the task at hand and avoid distractions.

Strategies and tactics: students who can draw on specific strategies and tactics to deal with challenges and setbacks are more likely to persevere. In their arsenal they have a set of skills for taking initiative and responsibility for being productive when they are uncertain about how to proceed. These skills include defining tasks, planning, monitoring, changing course of action and dealing with specific obstacles.

Psychologist and University of Pennsylvania professor, Angela Duckworth, popularized the term “grit” in her research at the Duckworth Lab has compiled a grit survey that you can take to test your and your children’s grit.

In this TED Talk Dr, Duckworth speaks about her research:

So what can parents do to help their kids develop grit?

1. Speak with your child’s teacher about whether he/she includes the development of the qualities of perseverance, self-control, curiosity in their curriculum and what you can do to help support these initiatives at home.
2. Put less of a focus on grades and being smart, and more effort on praising your child for being tenacious and determined. Help your child to stick to it, especially when they are struggling with specific topics or exercises. Encourage them to try again when they fail the first, second and even third time.
3. Let your child struggle and get frustrated.  Motivate them to work through challenges and failures. We forget how important it is to learn from our mistakes. Help your child understand that achievement does not come easily. It comes through struggle and hard work.
4. Be a role model.  Don’t be afraid to share your own struggles with your child and how you worked through those.
5. Tell your child that failure is not something to be afraid of. We have all failed and will continue to, but that we learn from failure. They have to be willing to fail.