I recently watched a TED Talk that struck a major chord with me. I guess it mostly confirmed something most of us already know – but helped me name something I really need to work on with one of my children.
Angela Lee Duckworth spent years studying what determines success. She and her team tried to predict who’d succeed and who’d fail in really tough situations – West Point Academy, the National Spelling Bee, rookie teachers in really tough environments, salespeople at big companies. She found that that IQ, social intelligence, good looks and many other important contributing factors are NOT the most important factors that determine success. What determined who’d succeed was GRIT.
According to Duckworth, grit is passion and perseverance for a long period of time. Grit is keeping your eye on the big goals and working towards them steadily even when the immediate stuff is really hard and really not fun. Grit is living life like a marathon, not like a sprint.
We know so little about how to build grit in people. Talent doesn’t make you gritty. Grit is unrelated or inversely related to talent. Ms. Duckworth said there’s no real answers yet about to how to build grit in people. She said we need to be gritty about figuring out how to build grit.
Watch the whole talk here if you want (it’s just 5 minutes – and really leaves you hanging!).
When I look at my own children and the people I know well, I see quite clearly that those who find success in their endeavors are generally gritty. So I want to do all I can do to help my kids develop the grit they need. Some of them have come by some serious grit quite naturally. For others, developing grit will be a bit of an uphill battle. But I believe it’s possible. And I believe it’s quite necessary.
I know that when I help my kids set goals that are a bit of a stretch – but not too much of a stretch – and help them make and execute do-able plans to get to their goals, then celebrate their achievements like crazy when they reach those goals, I’m helping them build grit. As they are urged to achieve hard things – whether it’s reaching a summit on a tough family hike, mastering a new piece on the violin or guitar, or helping with a long sweaty project in the backyard – they see that they can stretch, they can accomplish, they can reach. And I think seeing that hard stuff is possible is an essential element of grit.
Here’s one recent example:
One of my less-gritty kids got a terrible grade in PE last year because he didn’t really try very hard at all. He kept forgetting to bring his PE uniform. He didn’t push himself when they did the required Presidential Fitness Tests. He said his foot hurt or his back hurt or his shoes were too tight or whatever the malady of the day was. And when we saw that ridiculous PE grade (which was based purely on just bringing your PE stuff and showing real effort), we weren’t pleased.
We decided that in order for this child to have the tablet he’d saved up to buy, he needed to rectify that grade. We had him look up the Presidential Fitness Test online and find out how many push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups a kid his age was supposed to be able to do plus how fast he was supposed to be able to run a mile. And he agreed to work to meet those benchmarks and pass the fitness test this summer to make up for his bad grade and earn the right to get the tablet he earnestly wanted. We helped him make a chart and a plan including a few minutes a day several days a week of working on physical stuff. And we assured him he’d have the tablet within a couple weeks if he followed the plan. He’s a strong, healthy kid and the benchmarks seemed very reasonable for him.
Well, despite lots of gentle reminders and suggestions, he just didn’t follow the plan. He sporadically worked on a few sit ups or push ups here or there and with some slight arm-twisting, he consented to running a mile on a few occasions.
Finally, as the end of the summer loomed near, we decided to place a time limit on his goal and helped him draw up a more specific timeline and schedule for getting his goals accomplished. And with the more specific plan and timeline (along with just a tad bit of threatening – we did tell him he wouldn’t be able to get the tablet at all if he didn’t get complete the requirements by a particular date), things started to click for him.
He passed off the sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups fairly quickly by getting into the right mindset and pushing past the “I hate this” feeling just a little.
But the running goal was the hardest one – not something he could just push himself to do by trying extra hard for a few minutes (like he was able to do with the sit ups and pushups and pull ups). He needed to run every day for a while to increase his speed and get to the required 8 minute 25 second mile. He really doesn’t like running. We accepted that then assured him that he COULD do it and helped him see that taking 10 minutes or so to go running each morning for a while really wasn’t the worst thing ever. And once he got consistent with running a mile every morning, he was able to meet the goal on his 6th time in a row.
We were all SO happy for him! And he’s SO excited to have that tablet in his hands – there’s nothing like getting something you’ve really worked hard to get.
I don’t think this somewhat-forced accomplishment turned this child into a runner. Or into a really self-motivated guy. But I do think it helped him to see some grit in himself and helped him be willing to try a little harder in the future. And he needed to see that in order to build more grit. Grit builds on grit.
And the extra-happy ending to this story is that this child is going to have grit-building experiences all year thanks to his membership on the school volleyball team. At the beginning of the school year, we told him he had to try out for a sports team, any team, and that all we asked was that he go to the first tryout and make a real attempt. If he didn’t like it or didn’t make the team, all he’d have lost is an hour or two of his life. He wasn’t happy about this requirement but I like to think that his recent success with the running played into his ultimate agreement to go to tryouts and do his best.
And what do you know? He made the team! The positive peer pressure and coaching from someone other than his parents is proving to be wonderful for him.
So here’s to more grit-building experiences that can build on each other. I hope we’re on a roll. But I know there will be plenty more bumps in the road. I know I’m going to have to be gritty about building grit in my kids.
QUESTION: How are you working to build grit in your kids? What successes and struggles do you have in this area of parenting?
CHALLENGE: Decide on one thing you can do to help a child (or all your children) develop more grit. If you have older children, talk to them about grit and why it’s important and help them choose something they’re going to do to build grit in themselves. I had this discussion with my son as part of the whole “you must try out for a sports team” discussion – and it really seemed to help!
* Image from http://stapledesign.com/2011/09/grit/
I have a 15yo with a similar experience. Friends say we’ve been unfair to not let our son drive until he has his Eagle Scout award. He’s been eligible for over a year, although he can be highly distractible. Now 6months till his 16th birthday, he’s been working like crazy to get it done. In Az, you must drive with a permit for 6 months before you get your license no matter the age. Tis has been very motivational. Ive had friends give in and let them drive after the project is done and it takes another year for everything to get turned in. They’ve all told me to stick to our rule. It really has been a blessing.
Tiffini:
I agree that sometimes we do have to withhold something our kids really really want to help them get motivated and do something they’ll be really glad they did!
Thanks for linking up to the talk; it was really interesting! Honestly my first thought after watching that was not how grit applied to my kids but to me as a mother. In my stage of life with little kids at home, life truly does feel like a marathon — and it takes grit to make it through the day with a smile on my face! You’ll be happy to know that yesterday, when everything went haywire in the course of a five-minute period (messes everywhere + potty accidents + toddler tantrum), I put myself in time-out instead of yelling at my six-year-old. Five minutes later, I went back and got everything in order. When I started out as a parent, this would have done me in for the day — but not now! I think I’m developing some GRIT!
Anyway, I do think about this a lot (building grit in kids). Lots of things come easily for my eight-year-old especially; he is bright, which is an awesome blessing, but he hasn’t needed to really buckle down to get a task accomplished. Intuitively I’ve known that he has got to develop some grit! I think work is the key — and lots of encouragement and praise from us as parents. I try to let him “own” as much of his chores and tasks as I can. It is hard — but I think we’re making progress!
Great point about applying the notion of grit to ourselves as moms! Being a mom does take a ton of grit and it’s wonderful when we see that we’re able to handle things better and tough things out more and more as we progress as moms.
Yep, being bright is a blessing and a curse for our kids. When many things come easily, hard things are especially unappealing. I agree that work is the key. Even when they fight us on it, our children, especially the ones who have lots of natural abilities, really need to be somewhat pushed into working hard for some things.
After reading your post, I’ve been thinking about grit all day! Haven’t watched the video yet, but I plan to. This is going to be a long comment.
I am pretty sure that when I was growing up, my mom thought I didn’t have any grit. I was the kid who would disappear when the family was cleaning up after dinner–I’d “go to the bathroom” and hide out (I can’t imagine how infuriating that must have been for my mother!). And when we’d go for a family hike, I would lag behind and act like it was the hardest thing in the world. My mom has told me that she was worried that I didn’t have any talents and that I didn’t know how to work hard.
Everything changed when I entered high school and discovered some of my inherent passions and interests. When it came to reading, writing, and music, NOTHING could stop me. I became an extremely hard worker. Even when it was difficult, I persevered because something inside of me told me that I was good at this stuff and I wanted to excel. I think that is the key to grit: it has to come from within. It can’t be forced by external rewards.
As mothers, I don’t know where that leaves us–of course we need to force our kids to do some things that aren’t always fun (such as clean with the family, get an education, etc.), but maybe we shouldn’t force the areas where we can tell our kids don’t have natural ability or natural drive? Because chances are, if they don’t have natural ability and drive in that area, their grit is not going to emerge in that particular situation. I don’t think grit is necessarily the ability to persevere in ALL circumstances. As an adult, I have an abundance of grit in some areas of my life (again, areas where I am passionate, such as teaching and mothering), and I lack grit in other areas of my life.
I do think some people are born with more universal grit than others. Some people work hard at EVERYTHING. For me, it is more selective. And it HAS to be SELF motivated. I am still less likely to try hard at something if I feel pressured into doing it. But when I decide to do something because I want to do it, watch out. Maybe everyone is born with some level of grit, and we just need to find our “callings” and “deeper yeses” in order for the grit to shine through?
Not sure where all of this rambling is leading! Just some thoughts! And also I wanted to assure you that your son is going to be just fine! If he’s anything like me, he will find some areas where he is wildly, inherently passionate, and you will be amazed by the grit that emerges.
Wow, Rachel!
Such insightful and thought-provoking ideas.
Your second paragraph made me laugh and made me feel a lot of hope. My oldest child sounds exactly like you as a kid (hiding in the bathroom and lagging behind on hikes have been his specialty). It’s so good to know that you turned out great even though you had some serious lack of grit early on. I always hoped and figured that this child of mine would just click onto something he really cared about and start trying hard thanks to his excitement and self-motivation around that thing. But we realized that this child needed a little external motivation that will hopefully jump-start his internal motivation. And so far it’s working!
I love that you’ve brought up the importance of self-motivation when it comes to grit. I think we can lead our children towards self-motivation through strongly suggesting and even sort of forcing them to do certain things that we really feel they might enjoy. But you’re so right that making them do things they really hate and don’t have any talent or inclination for won’t build grit – it’ll just build resentment and frustration – on both sides. Ultimately, a lot of thought and discussion with our spouses and prayer (if we’re pray-ers), needs to go into decisions about what hard things we urge our children to do as we work to help them build grit.
There are some things my son learned that helped him have grit in challenging situations. When he was 12, he was enrolled in two merit badge pow wows on alternating weeks for a total of 5 merit badges. There were 21 lengthy requirements he had to complete at home, and he didn’t know how he would get it all done. I pointed out that he only needed to do about one requirement a day to get everything done. He smiled at the realization that he didn’t have to do everything all at once — he could pace himself. It was still challenging to set aside the time to get everything done, but it was doable.
One of the merit badges he took because all the other merit badge classes were full. He had to interview many, many people on a subject he didn’t like, including three professionals in their fields. When he was close to finishing the merit badge, he said he couldn’t stand it any more and wanted to quit. I told him no one was going to force him to finish the merit badge. I did tell him that he could choose. If he did 10 more minutes of work, he would finish the merit badge, and get his next rank the following week. If he didn’t finish the merit badge he wouldn’t get his next rank for at least six more months. He chose to do something unpleasant for 10 more minutes and did get his next rank the following week.
Helping our kids pace themselves and see that the goal isn’t impossible really helps. When things look horrible and unpleasant, it is helpful to help them see that the task won’t last forever.
Great story, Shelley. We all need a little help seeing that a goal or requirement is really just a bunch of pretty small and relatively un-painful steps. Looking at the whole thing all at once w/o breaking it down can be pretty overwhelming. Helping kids pace themselves and helping them break down their goals are very important parts of grit.
This is a hot button topic in our home! My husband is the King of Grit, naturally. If there’s a race to be run, a challenging project at work, a problem that needs to be solved…he will win it every time – not because he’s the fastest, or smartest, or best, but because he has the most grit. I’m a moderately gritty person, using my organizational skills and need for little sleep to break things down into manageable parts or crank out projects with all-nighters. Partly because of this, we’ve been really successful in life, and can afford to give our kids an easier life than we had growing up.
But we are really concerned and working hard to make sure that our kids develop a strong work ethic and some grit of their own. To us, GRIT = INDEPENDENCE because people who work hard and persevere through challenges will be successful in life – we’ve seen the truth of this in our own families.
Exactly HOW to build it is the question! I agree with Rachel, that some of it is dependent on personality. Some people find their bliss and their grit emerges as a result. Others are gritty from birth. And still others find their grit along the way as they face life’s inevitable challenges.
As parents, can we “invent” some challenges to help that process along? My oldest son is a lot like yours Saren, and we did something similar, requiring him to get straight As in school (which we knew he could do, but his own laziness and disorganization was getting in his way) in order to earn the iPod he so desperately wanted. It took two years, and many challenges to get there, but he finally did it!
Now, who knows if he will look back on this as the grand trauma that his parents put him through, or a great learning experience…but at least we are TRYING to encourage that grit to start growing! Thanks to your story, we are encouraged in the process – it’s nice to know we’re not alone!
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and story, Beth. It is so nice to know that we’re not alone as we struggle to know the right way to help our kids develop grit! And grit is an essential element of independence, I totally agree.
I do think we sometimes have to “invent” challenges since we live in a society and age when our kids aren’t required to develop grit to simply survive.
An in reference to your wondering whether your son would look back and appreciate your making him really work for that iPod, I have to share my little experience from last night. My son was working on an essay to apply to go on a really exciting expedition to the Grand Canyon with his science teacher. He was supposed to write about his stamina level as the trip would involve a lot of hard hiking. As I proofread his essay, I was very pleased to see that he wrote that he “absolutely loved hiking” (he’s always lagged behind and complained on family hikes. I asked him if that statement was true and he said it was and that he’d really learned to love hiking over the years. I said, “so are you glad your mean parents made you do all those hard hikes?” and he said, “absolutely.” Music to my ears!