I want my child to have Grit!

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

— Michael Jordon

Scenario

Two children are practicing basketball during recess in 5th grade. They both dribble and shoot over and over again. They both miss their shots more often than they make them. One child kicks the ball, yells, and makes horrible faces after each missed shot and takes a while to compose himself before getting back to shooting. The same child celebrates and show boats after making a shot. The second child slumps over and takes a deep breath after each missed shot and then goes back out to try again. When this child makes a shot, he gives his friend a high five or says “yes” and then goes back to shooting practice.

Which child do you think has Grit?

Which one is more likely to keep working hard even when they fail more often than not? Which one has a positive mindset that will motivate them to continue trying until they reach their goal?

Angela Duckworth’s book, “Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance” defines Grit as a passion and a willingness to persevere toward a goal over a long period of time. Grit permeates literally everything we do. Grit is not something most people are born with. Grit is learned! And, like any other skill, the more you practice, the better you get. But how? How do we get gritty, if we are not already? And, how can we give our children the gift of Grit?

“We have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned.” - Angela Lee Duckworth

In an effort to instill Grit in my kiddos, I am pushing them to wait a little longer before asking for help! When my kids want help or want giving up on something challenging, we talk about how they will feel when they figure it out. I do not answer their question or help them directly. I may “help” them through with the Socratic Method. Guiding them through learning to help themselves by them asking questions and guiding their answers. We talk about how many times it takes to master something. How many times the piano song will sound terrible before it starts to resemble a song. How many times they will spell a word wrong before consistently spelling it correctly. How many times they will whip themselves with the jump rope until they can do a double under.

Another important component of Grit is something that “good” parents don’t tend to allow in their children’s lives – real struggle!

Many people gain Grit by overcoming real life struggles. Generally, our goal as parents is to make sure our kids have the food, care, protection and education they deserve. So how can we “create” struggle that will result in Gritty kids? Allow them to figure out struggles themselves. Whether these struggles be with friends, with teachers at school, with math, with remembering to bring a coat, with experiencing the natural consequences of their actions and NOT saving them.

My 10-year-old son recently complained one evening while getting ready for bed that he was out of clean pajamas. I said, “I am so sorry. What are you going to sleep in?” He said, “mom, I need more pajamas.” I said, “little dude, when you see that your pajamas are almost gone, you need to wash your laundry.” He gave me a little smile and went to put his laundry in the wash. He slept in shorts and a t-shirt that night. I haven’t had to remind him to do laundry since.

Instilling grit by allowing your child to struggle and figure things out themselves works with exercising, schoolwork, chores, artwork, sports, relationships…anything. When your children learn to have grit, they are less willing to give up when something gets hard. They are willing to try things, fail and try again.

Consider printing out a mosaic coloring page – a fairly simple one. Talk to your kids about how long it takes to master a task.
Choose a task they would like to master. Set a standard for “mastery” of that task.
Have your child color one shape of the mosaic each time they practice this task. Maybe take pictures or otherwise record their initial performance of this task and a couple times along the way to see their progress.
Once they practice the final time, take a picture or record their performance and compare the beginning and ending performance. Help them see how hard they worked to master that task and how many shapes they colored in to get there.
We use this method for all kinds of things: specific math tasks, practicing dance, piano, learning to bake and decorate a cake, learning to vacuum appropriately, writing a persuasive essay…. They visual of the mosaic is very effective.