How to Raise a Kid Who Won’t Quit

By Hank Pellissier

Persistence is a hot topic among education researchers these days and for good
reason: It’s critical for success in school and beyond. Here are 8 tips for nurturing
this quality in your child.

Determined, diligent, tenacious, persistent — we use these adjectives to describe
Olympians, spelling bee champions, entrepreneurs, and success stories of all
kinds. Do they describe your child?

Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, brought this
stick-to-it quality to the attention of educators and the public with her 2013 book
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Gritty people, Duckworth’s
research shows, finish what they start, overcome obstacles, and achieve their
goals.

Researchers continue to examine how so-called “soft,” non-cognitive skills like
grit affect academic success as it becomes increasingly clear that these qualities
are even more predictive of achievement than intelligence or talent. While there’s
still much to learn about teaching kids to buckle down and work hard, research
suggests there are lots of ways parents can support the development of this
mindset. Here are eight ways to nurture grit in your child over time.

1. Let Them Play
Just like adults, kids tend to work harder when they love what they’re doing.
What’s the best way to help your child discover what they’re passionate about?
Let them explore freely and widely. “Before those who’ve yet to fix on a passion
are ready to spend hours a day diligently honing skills, they must goof around,
triggering and retriggering interest,” writes Duckworth in Grit. Exploring the world
through family outings, media, exhibits, new people, and extracurricular clubs,
classes, and lessons can spark lifelong interests. To form an enduring passion,
Duckworth claims, that first spark of interest needs to be followed by many
subsequent encounters that will trigger and retrigger your child’s attention. So if
your child’s curiosity is piqued by any topic from acrobatics to zoology, you can
support their nascent interest by offering additional exposure to that subject. Note
that this does not mean packing your child’s every waking moment with
scheduled activity; make sure they have plenty of (screen-free) downtime to fill
with self-chosen projects of creative discovery.

2. Help Them Practice Self-Control

Self-control is the quality that comes into play when your child has two possible
actions to choose from, one that promises immediate pleasure, the other not as
pleasurable in the moment but that serves a more distant goal. Post to Instagram
or practice piano? Play a video game or study for a math test? Perhaps not
surprisingly, self-control is closely related to the ability to work toward a goal over
time. Studies have shown that higher levels of self-control early in life predict how
well kids do academically, as well as a host of other positive outcomes including
adult earnings, savings, and physical health. While researchers aren’t clear
exactly how self-control and grit are related (it’s possible to have one without the
other), the good news is that self-control can be learned. Playing games like Red
Light, Green Light and Simon Says, rewarding kids for delayed gratification,
making sure kids get enough sleep, and limiting their TV-watching are all
associated with helping kids develop the ability to control their impulses, which
may translate to an ability later to resist the siren call of their smartphone and
focus on that history essay.

3. Aim High
Many studies have shown that kids work harder and do better when their teacher
has high expectations for them. Parental expectations matter, too. High achievers
who persevere in the face of challenges tend to come from families with high
standards for their academic success and a home environment that supports
learning. Healthy achievement doesn’t arise simply out of high expectations but,
paradoxically, out of feeling secure, notes Diana Divecha, developmental
psychologist and researcher with the Yale Center for Emotional
Intelligence. “Opportunities to stretch, opportunities to be trusted and respected,
and the experience of being supported when necessary all help to foster a child’s
belief in success. And of course keep your priorities straight and reassure them
of your love no matter the outcome,” she says.

4. Praise the Process
If you want to raise a kid who is eager to take on challenges and is not deterred
by obstacles, don’t praise him for being smart; it may make him reluctant to try
something harder for fear that if he fails, it will reveal that he isn’t so smart after
all. The research of Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, author of
Mindset: the New Psychology of Success, shows that when children are praised
for their intelligence or talents, they avoid challenges and are less resilient in the
face of difficulty. But when children are praised for hard work that paid off, they
are more likely to seek out challenges and keep going when things get tough.
They are more motivated, more persistent, and more successful. Switching from
person-praise to process-praise is easy: just refer to what the child did, not who
they are. Compliment the carefulness of the sewing project, the gutsy attentiveness displayed in the basketball game, the well-organized time
management used in studying for the final exam.

5. Encourage Goals Big and Small
Helping your child set short-, medium-, and long-term goals that resonate with
their personal values and interests can teach them persistence, according to
Duckworth in Grit. An example of a short-term goal for your sixth grade daughter
might be an A on her science final, a medium-term goal could be winning a
medal in a city or state science fair and a long-term goal would be receiving a
science scholarship to attend college. Your child’s goals should be in what
educators call the “optimal zone” — not too easy, not too hard, but just right.
Research shows that hard goals can help your child focus their attention, work
harder, and develop strategic thinking. But if a goal is so difficult that it’s beyond
their ability to achieve, they may be setting themselves up for anxiety.

6. Extracurriculars Help
Activities outside of regular school hours, such as sports, drama, debate, Scouts,
or music, are a great context for learning how to work hard at something over
time. New York Times columnist Bruce Feiler, author of The Secrets of Happy
Families, writes that Michelle Obama made each of her daughters take up two
sports — one she chose and one they chose, so that they would have the
experience of working at something they may not necessarily like and seeing
improvement. Research shows that students who participate in extracurricular
activities get better grades and have higher self-esteem, lower rates of
depression, and lower dropout rates than students who don’t. Kids who devote
more than one year to the same activity are more likely to graduate from college;
and sticking with the same activity for two years or more increases their odds of
employment soon after college.

7. Imagine That
When it comes to developing tenacity, studies show that visualizing a future goal
— and the potential obstacles to achieving it — really works. In one study, high
school students were instructed to imagine a desired future outcome and then
visualize possible obstacles to that outcome. The exercise improved high school
students’ persistence in studying for the PSAT. In another study, kids were asked
were asked to visualize a possible adult version of themselves. Next they listed
positive and negative forces that could help or derail their progress toward
becoming that person, along with strategies for success. Two years later,
students who had participated in the exercise spent more time on their homework
and had higher GPAs than kids in the control group. Our takeaway? When kids
spend time visualizing where they want to be and how they’ll get there, they’re
more likely to work hard.

8. Do a Style Check
How would you describe your parenting style? Permissive? Hands-off?
Authoritarian? Research suggests that your parenting style can affect how
determined your child is.
Spoiler alert: An authoritative parenting style, one that’s firm yet warm, seems to
be the sweet spot. Myriad studies indicate that kids with authoritative parents
have more positive outcomes, from less drug use to greater well-being. And
research suggests that the authoritative style, with its high expectations and high
responsiveness, has the greatest effect on academic success. Authoritarian
parents may make more decisions for their child, while permissive parents may
lean toward letting kids figure it out on their own — in both cases, missing
opportunities to help kids learn how to make good decisions. An authoritative
parenting style is one that guides — children of authoritative parents are
instructed to think carefully, weighing their options and consequences. These children obtain an advantage in developing self-confidence, willpower, and self-discipline — qualities associated with a gritty character.

Marty Callahan has spent his life understanding and improving the lives of students both young and old. His passion led to the founding of Shotokan Karate Leadership School in Santa Rosa, CA in 1981 with a dream to awaken the extraordinary leader in his students. Having inspired, taught, coached, supported, and trained over 15,000 students in 40,000 classes in Santa Rosa, Marty has become Sonoma County’s preeminent martial arts leadership instructor. His students, hundreds of whom have gone on to become leaders in their chosen fields, appreciate his engaging, student centered approach to teaching and they believe you will too.

Marty Callahan has spent his life understanding and improving the lives of students both young and old. His passion led to the founding of Shotokan Karate Leadership School in Santa Rosa, CA in 1981 with a dream to awaken the extraordinary leader in his students. Having inspired, taught, coached, supported, and trained over 15,000 students in 40,000 classes in Santa Rosa, Marty has become Sonoma County’s preeminent martial arts leadership instructor. His students, hundreds of whom have gone on to become leaders in their chosen fields, appreciate his engaging, student centered approach to teaching and they believe you will too.