In the first part of our series, we discussed what grit is and introduced the first of ten teachable actions you can take in your own family to teach your kids grit. Need a quick review?
Grit can be defined as “strength of character” or “courage and resolve”. Angela Duckworth, the psychologist known for her TED Talk on grit uses this definition: “Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” I like to explain it to my kids as determination and a never-give-up kind of attitude. And the thing that I’ve learned is that grit IS teachable!
The below few tips and tricks have come from books and articles that I’ve read, and ideas that I’ve learned and tried out with my own kids to help us teach our children how to tap into their own grit.
And don’t worry, it doesn’t involve shame, guilt or rubbing any dirt on anything to walk it off.
Tip #2 to Teach Kids Grit: Explore Their Strengths
“If a child is poor in math but good at tennis, most people would hire a math tutor. I would rather hire a tennis coach.”
-Deepak Chopra
When we help our child to learn their strengths, we allow them to tap into a lifetime of passion. Remember the widely accepted definition for grit? Passion combined with perseverance for long-term goals. According to a research article: “The current theory suggests that perseverance without passion isn’t grit, but merely grind.” We’ve all done the grind, and that is NOT what we want for our children.
Finding your children’s strengths might not be something that is easily uncovered with an afternoon of questioning. You’ll want to observe, but also talk to your child’s teachers, coaches and other adults. Moms within your parent group are very insightful and oftentimes see your child’s strengths better than you. (You are NOT a bad mom, you may just be too close to the situation.)
For older children, strength finder quizzes and workshops may be of interest for both you and your child. We have actually found a Strengths Explorer local event at House of Shine that my tween is participating in soon. I can’t wait to hear (and hopefully share some nuggets!) from her experience.
However you go about exploring and discovering your child’s strengths, you’re helping them in understanding how they naturally think, feel and behave when they are at their best. When we allow them to devote more time to developing their strongest talents, we’re setting them up for a future of thriving in their element.
As parents, let’s take a back seat to “fixing” their weaknesses, and instead go all in on their strengths!
Tip #3 to Teach Kids Grit: Be Curious
Curiosity is a natural inclination to want to learn or know more. Some children are more naturally curious, where others tend to accept everything at face value. How does this relate to grit? In the face of setbacks, there are the children who will just accept the failure and stop there. But the curious questioners will want to know: ‘Why did this happen? If I do it again, can I prevent it from happening a second time? What is stopping me from trying again?” Those are the ones that will persevere in the face of adversity.
Studies show that we have the ability to promote and encourage curiosity in our kids. There’s a great article that UC Berkley has in their Greater Good Magazine about How to Cultivate Curiosity in Your Classroom.
They share there are actually 5 dimensions to curiosity. As to why this research is important, they note, “Apart from intelligence and effort, researchers claim that curiosity—“a hungry mind”—is actually one of the three key predictors of academic achievement.” Most of their tips are educator-based, but you may be able to restructure some of the ideas for your home.
We’ve encouraged curiosity in our own family by reminding the kids to “think like a scientist” or “think like a designer.” When you take both scientists and designers, very few times is the first iteration the one that the becomes the final solution to the problem. Scientists run trials and tests and track things such as “efficacy” (Who knew that would become a normal part of our vocabulary in the last year!?)
Designers start with an idea, then a model, then a prototype, and the entire time they are asking questions about what doesn’t work and how can they make it better.
Teach your children the word “iterate” – a repeating attempt to get closer and closer to a solution. Iterations are part of the process, not failures.
Model curiosity by asking thinking questions that start with “how” or “what if”.
Allow your kids to do the research. This is where I’m a huge proponent of screen time, just make sure you have your search settings in place or are doing the research with them. In this instance, you can say, “I don’t know, but let’s learn together.”
When you encourage curiosity in the home, you may also get your own boost of joy and wonder.
**Interesting side note I learned in my research, there are two Mars rovers named Curiosity and Perseverance. Obviously @NASA can vouch that these to concepts are closely related.
