Developing Grit in Your Children
“Grit” has recently been a trendy parenting and education buzzword. University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, defines it as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”
Duckworth believes that grit is a greater predictor of future success than IQ or talent. It takes dedication, focus, passion, and resilience. It is the ability to persevere in the face of adversity and failure.
Here are seven techniques to assist your youngster in developing the all-important tool of grit.
- Be a good role model.
Because children are typically mirrors of their parents, model “grit” for your youngster. Here’s how it works:
Handle your blunders with optimism and/or humor.
Show that you are willing to tackle problems and endure.
Discuss your child’s mistakes and setbacks with him or her, and ask for guidance when appropriate.
- Allow your child to make errors while teaching him to accept them.
It’s easy to shield our children from failure, yet doing so stops them from acquiring important coping skills.
Rather than keeping your child from failing, teach him how to deal with failure properly.
Teach your youngster that failure is only an opportunity to start over and come up with new and better strategies. “What happened this time?” “How can we avoid this happening again?” Take a hint from Sarah Blakely’s father, the founder of Spanx: Every night at supper, he made his children relate their faults. These blunders were subsequently applauded because if Sara and her brother hadn’t failed that day, they hadn’t done anything difficult enough.
Alternatively, Kelly Holmes, author of Happy You, Happy Family: When her daughter misspells a word during practice, Holmes offers her a high five and says, “High five, you’re learning!”
- Assist your child in setting goals.
Set at least one long-term goal with your child and then assist him to stick to it.
Here are some goal-setting techniques that you can use with your child:
Allow your child to choose the goal so that it is important to him.
Break the big aim down into smaller steps to make it more manageable.
Discuss potential hurdles and develop an action plan for how your child will deal with them if they arise.
Make a list of everything: Professor Gail Matthews discovered that simply putting down your goals increases your chances of success by 42%.
- Teach your youngster problem-solving skills.
When your child encounters difficulties or setbacks, explore solutions alongside him or her.
“How about staying after school to obtain extra help from your teacher?” or “How about starting your assignment a little earlier?” are some ideas.
However, it is critical to allow your youngster to give ideas as well. This demonstrates to your child that problems can be solved, and it provides him with a sense of strength and control in the face of difficulties.
- Praise effort rather than capacity.
Dr Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, highlights the need of teaching your child a growth mindset by applauding effort rather than capacity.
When you applaud the effort, your child learns that with hard work and practice, he can achieve anything.
When you reward capacity, your youngster learns that certain characteristics, such as intelligence, are “fixed.” If he suffers a setback, he will believe he has hit his limit and will be more prone to give up rather than put in additional effort.
- Encourage your child’s interests.
Because passion is an important component of grit, assist your youngster in discovering and pursuing his passions.
Be encouraging: You may desire your child to be a top athlete, only to discover that chess is his genuine love. Be welcoming and supportive if this is the case. This will help your child’s grit as well as his self-esteem.
- Be a family that welcomes new challenges.
Angela Duckworth’s family adheres to the “Hard Thing Rule,” which requires each member of the family to complete one “hard thing.” It must be something that demands practice and provides feedback and opportunity to improve.
Family members must “try repeatedly” to improve.
You may assist your youngster to develop the powerful tool of grit by following any or all of these seven tactics!
