Raising Kids with Grit

What is grit? Grit is having qualities like strength, character and a drive to succeed in life.  Kids that fall down continuously,  persevere after trying, have the ability to endure,  are able to pick themselves back up time and time again are the ones that  flourish in life. According to the University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, “grit” is a better predictor of success than intellect. These kids grow up to accomplish a lot due to their persistence.  They bounce back from failure. unlike IQ, grit can be developed.  Here are some ways you can teach your child grit:

1. Start coaching instead of controlling: By coaching, help your child develop skills instead of doing it for them and telling them what to do.  When you do things for them you take away their opportunity to become competent individuals.  Doing tasks with him or her teaches confidence.  This means that they will learn to manage their own anxiety and it will allow the parent to have less control.
2. Perfection is not the goal:  Resist the temptation to improve on your child’s task.  Constant intervention undermines your child’s efforts and gets in the way of them learning for themselves.
3. Let them try to do it for themselves early on: Stand by them, ready to help in whatever way actually helps your child; however, with the least intervention that you could possibly give your child, give appropriate encouragement unless they really need your help.  The more you intervene the more you will limit your child.
4. Help your children build confidence by tackling small tasks: Demonstrate to your child how to do a task that is easy and simple for them to accomplish.  This assistance helps them to succeed in the task when they try something new and these small successes boosts their confidence.  Let them know that help is always there if they need it.
5. Always encourage and teach self-encouragement: Everyone needs encouragement!  Encouraging your child not only keeps them more positive and motivated, but  It will also give them an inner voice that will help them throughout their lives.
6. Focus on the efforts and not the results: Give positive feed back about specific things that they have control over like hard work or perseverance rather than things they have no control over i. e. intelligence.  The goal here is to keep them trying and constantly improving and for them to learn that hard work pays off in the end.

Teaching kids these “gritty” qualities allows mistakes less embarrassing and recovery more tolerable.  This also allows kids to move on more quickly when they have erred.  This technique is all part of the “growth mindset,” that  success comes from effort and hard work instead of innate ability. This very philosophy is now being taught in classrooms across the country.