Here’s How You Can Help Your Kids Succeed
Do conversations with your kids ever go like this?
Me: How did your ski lessons go today?
Child: I can’t do it….I don’t want to go.
One of my biggest fears as a father is a child that gives up when things get tough.
Kids that learn to overcome the hard stuff are more confident and successful. While there isn’t always an obvious recipe to creating kids that push through…
Here are 4 things you can do to teach your kids to never give up and why this is so important…
It Starts With The Why:
There is a four letter words that has been getting a whole lot of buzz in parenting circles and describes taking on life’s hard stuff…
$#it —--—————————————-----> Grit.
Grit is a bit like being up with a sick child all night and still going to work, cutting the grass and playing ball with your kid while you’re totally exhausted.
Angela Duckworth’s TED talk (with >26M views) defines Grit as:
Where passion and perseverance meet to achieve long term goals.
Ms. Duckworth is clear to point out that Grit is NOT:
Natural Talent
Hotdog anyone?
Or
Luck
phew….
Duckworth’s research showed that Grit had a higher correlation to success than natural talent or intelligence (her research followed West Point Cadets and National Spelling Bee Contestants).
Put more simply…. MORE GRIT = MORE SUCCESS.
If the goal is to raise successful kids and grit is the way to achieve that goal…
Then how do we get grittier kids?
Here are the 4 ways to tackle grit:
Be Mufasa (from the Lion King)
Get Hyped About Real Learning
You’re On Fire…What Do You Do?
Start With A Pillow Fort
Be Mufasa (Demanding Yet Supportive)
Check out this clip of Mufasa giving a master class in being a dad (75secs).
Mufasa is a classic Authoritative style parent. This form of parenting is ideal for creating grit in kids. There is plenty of evidence to back that this style produces the best outcomes in children:
“Studies have found that authoritative parents are more likely to raise confident kids who achieve academic success, have better social skills and are more capable at problem-solving.” (From Make It)
Now for a quick visual on Authoritative parenting, along with the other 3 styles.
Do Be:
Demanding set high expectations but support your kids to meet those expectations. And have rules with natural consequences.
Don’t Be:
Too Tough on yourself. It is hard to always ‘dad’ in the top right corner. We are playing the long game here and small adjustments over time lead to success.
Al Bundy from Married…with Children (Neglectful), Frank Reynolds from Always Sunny (Permissive) or Red Forman That 70s Show (Authoritarian).
Get Hyped About Real Learning
There has been a lot written and researched about enjoying the process of learning (growth mindset) from uber intelligent people (Dr. Carol Dweck). This enjoyment in process of learning is one way to build grit.
However, this isn’t the cram for a test kind of learning.
That process that growth mindset people learn to enjoy goes something like this:
Hit challenges -> get feedback->learn from failures and mistakes-> apply the learnings->achieve the goal.
We try to get our kids hyped and to love this process by doing these 5 things:
Help our kids see challenges as fun puzzles to solve.
Go all House of Pain “Jump Around” about failures (celebrate them) (see HiLoFunFailFav post).
Help your kids see their success not against their buddies but against their own progress.
Praise the hard work not the outcome - instead of saying “good job” when your kid gets an A on a test, praise all the time and effort they spent studying.
Start using the word ‘yet’ - “I can’t do the monkey bars”. Our response: “You might not be able to do them ‘yet’ but if you keep trying you will.”
You’re On Fire…What Do You Do?
No literally…if you were on fire what would you do?
Stop, Drop and Roll. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s this phrase and set of actions was drilled into our 5th grade brains.
I would argue that there is a more important 3 word phrase we should etch into our kids’ brains about the process of learning.
We teach our kids a simple and memorable way to think about learning and goal achieving….
We use Pause, Think and Re-Try (doesn’t quite roll off as smoothly as Stop, Drop and Roll). For another approach I like Ray Dalio’s learning loop from his book Principles.
Obstacles are a constant when setting goals. Once our kids hit an obstacle on their way to a goal we ask them to Pause. We encourage them to Think about the reasons they hit an issue by asking ‘why’ and suggest they Think of ways they could Re-Try to overcome the barrier. And then Re-Try. We encourage repeating until the goal is met.
Start With A Pillow Fort
Your 4 year old is going to work towards different goals than your 10 year old.
Meet them where they are. Start small.
Let them feel the satisfaction of setting a goal, hitting an obstacle, pausing, thinking, re-trying and eventually achieving.
This should be simple at first… like building a pillow fort.
Let them build. Watch as a pillow wall tumbles. Ask them ‘what would you change so it doesn’t happen again?’ Let them try again. Eventually they will get it.
Without further ado, it’s time to get in the ring with those kiddos and get gritty. With any amount of luck, you just might fail a little, which you now know is a good thing if you've been paying attention.
