How Do I Help My Child Become More “Gritty”?
Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. – Nelson Mandela
When LeeAnne, Theresa and I attended a Learning & the Brain Conference last spring, we were fortunate enough to have heard Dr. Caroline Miller speak about Getting Grit: How to Embed Passion, Persistence & Awe in Your School. Based on some of Dr. Miller’s suggestions for how teachers and schools can help children, here are some ways you can help your child become grittier:
· Help identify passions
o Help your child figure out what is important to them, things they really love. People are more willing to work toward things they have chosen rather than things that were chosen for them. When dealing with academics or less preferred tasks, help your child to see how such accomplishments can related to their passions.
· Teach goal-setting & value of hard goals
o As LeeAnne stated in her blog on setting goals, setting up appropriate goals that are self-driven, measurable, and important to the individual helps the individual stick to the goals and not give up. Such goals can help motivate your child as they would be working on something that is important to them. If your child feels the goal is not achievable or important, there is greater chance they will feel defeated and give up.
o Help your child set small, measurable goals that can help them to be successful.
o Ask your child what their goal is for the week or month which will enable you to help your child to turn those goals into S.M.A.R.T. goals so they can see progress they are able to achieve.
· Promote process over outcome and teach & reward risk-taking
o Help your child to realize that the way they approach tasks and work toward them is more important than the outcome.
o Allowing children to fail and then form a plan to be more successful helps to develop grit (Dr. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance) as responding to the failure can help them become more determined.
o Learning to deal with failure and adversity helps us establish more self-control and the ability to work toward a goal
o Teach your child the acronym:
FAIL =
· First
· Attempt
· In
· Learning
o Debbie Pincus, a family therapist who created the Calm Parent AM/PM, suggests focusing on what your child has done well for activities even though they may have been unsuccessful for other aspects. She also suggests helping your child to assess what they did to be successful and what they may have done that resulted in errors. Redoing errors (even if it does not change the test scores or the outcomes) can help the child review and learn from mistakes while learning to develop grit.
o Emphasis on the drive and willingness to keep working and trying rather than the outcome (such as grades) helps children achieve grit.
· Share stories of overcoming
o Talk to your child about difficulties you have faced and what you did to overcome those obstacles.
o One of Dr. Miller’s techniques for promoting gratitude, self-confidence, and grit is for individuals to identify three hard things that they accomplished each day along with how they were able to do so. What a great activity to become a part of the daily family dinner conversation or a bedtime routine!
· Promote patience—“Not yet”
o Help your child to learn to wait for some things rather than needing to have all of their wants/needs immediately. When children learn to delay gratification, it helps them improve their ability to work toward a goal.
· Praise wisely
o Oftentimes parents feel the more they praise their child, the more it helps their child build self-esteem and confidence, however overly praising children results can backfire, resulting in a dependence on praise from others rather than feeling their own pride in what they achieve. However, when parents do not praise their children enough, children may feel as though they have not met the expectations of their parents or that their parents do not care what they do, which may result in a lack of motivation. Children may feel as though they have not met the expectations of their parents or that their parents do not care what they do. The quality of praise is also important. Praising your child for their attempts and how hard they have worked is more beneficial than praise for the outcome. If your child works really hard at a passion or difficult task, focus on their work rather than whether they are the best at the activity. Your praise of their diligence could encourage them to keep working at their passion and overcome obstacles.
o Dr. Judy Willis (a board-certified neurologist who later worked as a classroom teacher) wrote a great article titled, Good Praise, Bad Praise. http://www.parenttoolkit.com/social-and-emotional-development/news/general-parenting/good-praise-bad-praise
· Mentoring & messages
o Help your child develop a growth mindset, a topic LeeAnne will be writing about in an upcoming blog. This includes looking at the positive aspects of things rather than the negatives and approaching things as though they will not be successful (fixed mindset).
o Let your child know you will be there to help and support them if they need help rather than just providing the help. This allows your child the opportunity to problem-solve and attempt strategies on their own rather than becoming dependent on you to solve their problems.
o If needed, help your child identify obstacles they may need to deal with when working on goals. Rather than just identifying possible obstacles for your child, ask them some leading questions or point out some things they may need to think about in order to problem-solve on their own.
As I wrote my first blog on grit, I talked about the grit shown by Nick Foles, the quarterback of the Eagles, right after the Eagles won the NFL divisional championship. Today as I’ve been finishing this blog, I have been watching the pregame shows for Super Bowl LII. There have been many more examples of grit in players and others who have demonstrated “passion and perseverance to their long term goals”, often in spite of adversity and naysayers. Grit is essential in helping your child develop a more positive mindset (which LeeAnne will be talking about in an upcoming blog) and achieve their goals. You can help your child become “grittier”!
Carol A. Walck, MS, CCC-SLP