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Curiosity and Grit Help Kids Succeed More Like This How TVO
Search TVO Parents... Home School & Learning Health & Development Social & Emotional Parents' Toolkit Videos Blogs Curiosity and Grit Help Kids Succeed November 24, 2014 Share More Like This Tweet 14 Share 1 People for Education 2014 Conference Highlights People for Education Conference 2014 Grit and Failure Help Kids Succeed Grit and Failure Help Kids Succeed, Author Says SickKids Tip #31: How To Build Your Child's SelfConfidence How TVO Makes a Difference The Science of Sports How can we tell if a child will be successful in life? Are high grades an indicator? Or are there other factors that lead to your child’s success? Paul Tough thinks so. Tough is the author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. He was the keynote speaker at this year’s 2014 People for Education conference. About 300 parents and educators crowded into an auditorium at the Rotman School of Management to hear him argue (in the most pleasant way possible) that success is not all about IQ and test scores. Tough says that in the past couple of decades we’ve been defining success for children far too narrowly, focusing on their shortterm tests scores of cognitive skills such as math and literacy. “Those skills certainly matter,” says Tough, “but what scientists are discovering now is that the kind of skills that lead to longterm success in children, that lead them to be happy, successful motivated adults, involve a much broader set of skills.” What are these broader skills? Tough says kids need a number of “character strengths” including grit, curiosity and resilience. Building Grit in Your Child Tough cites the work of University of Pennsylvania researcher and psychologist Angela Duckworth. She defines grit as a passion and perseverance for longterm goals. Duckworth's research focuses on how grit and selfcontrol predict achievement. She administered a “grit” questionnaire to contestants in the National Spelling Bee. It included statements like “I finish whatever I begin” and “setbacks don’t discourage me”. The kids with high grit scores were more likely to last longer in the competition. Tough says the idea behind building grit is that it prepares kids to deal with adversity and failure. So Tough encourages us to let our kids fail. It’s not the failure that leads to success; it’s learning how to deal with, manage and learn from the failure that is important. “We need to protect kids from serious trauma and chronic stress,” says Tough, “but a little adversity can be a good thing.” Kids with grit are not devastated by failure, whether it's a bad grade or not winning a spot on the team. They are able to recover and resolve to do better next time. During his presentation, Tough described a study that asked 2,000 adults to complete a checklist of adverse events such as divorce, the loss of a loved one, a natural disaster, etc. Adults were to check the events they had experienced as a child. They were then asked to complete a second checklist about their levels of happiness, wellbeing and mental health. People who had checked off a lot of adversity in childhood indicated their mental health was not great. Those who had checked off no adversity indicated their mental health was no better. But the adults who had checked off two or three adverse advents turned out to be the happiest and most successful people of the bunch. Tough elicited chuckles from the crowd when he described how parents would sometimes approach him after a presentation, asking how they could create the right amount of adversity for their children. Would a divorce and a natural disaster be enough? Tough says we don’t have to manufacture adversity for kids. It happens naturally often enough, whether it’s in sports or social situations, such as not getting picked for the baseball team or being snubbed in the lunchroom. Parents just have to know how to respond when their kids face adversity and help them manage failure. Tough suggests we take inspiration from Elizabeth Spiegel, a teacher who turned low income middle school students into national chess champions, triumphing over affluent high school students in the U.S. She did this by helping her students learn from their failures. If a student lost a game during a chess competition, Spiegel would replay the entire game with the student, move by move. Together, they would discuss where the student made mistakes, and what the student could have done differently. This helped the student make a better decision in the next game. Curious Kids Curiosity is another key character strength that helps children succeed. Tough says while kids are naturally curious, we can do a better job at responding to our child's curiosity. “How parents answer questions really matters. Take your child’s questions seriously. Do your best to answer as deeply as possible. If you don’t know the answer, find it out together.” Tough says it’s good to model how you find an answer with your child so that they know finding the right answer sometimes takes effort. “Get them to understand that it’s not just a world where parents have all the information – that you have to do these steps to find out.” Tough says schools can also do a better job at enrouraging curiosity. “There’s too much emphasis on rote learning, writing letters and numbers, and worksheets. It’s true that doing it over and over again can help you learn your times tables and your letters. At the same time, worksheet mentality can become overwhelming, and seep into parts of learning that aren’t as useful.” Learning should be less about preprogrammed answers, and more about looking for answers together. “It’s important to find a balance between both marks and character traits,” Tough says. “Look at kids holistically. The question is: how do we train grit and curiosity to get us to where we want to be in life?" Want to hear more from Paul Tough? Watch our interview with him, where he delves further into the character strengths your child needs to succeed, and shares a shining example of a person who achieved huge success by being curious, gritty and willing to fail. Share Tweet 14 Share 1 Tags: Child Development Education Parents & Education Health & Development how kids learn School & Learning 0 Comments Recommend 1 TVO ⤤ Share Login Sort by Oldest Start the discussion… Be the first to comment. WHAT'S THIS? ALSO ON TVO Marc Goodman: Crime Inc. 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