3015: How to Instill Grit in Your Kids (It’s a 3-Part Process) by Kalen Bruce of FreedomSprout on Raising Resilient Children

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, How to Instill Grit in Your Kids. It's a 3-Part Process by Kalen Bruce of FreedomSprout.com Are your kids gritty? I don't mean all-day beach adventure gritty, but mentally gritty. Grit is a learned character trait. It's something that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. So, what exactly is grit?

[00:00:25] Grit. The word grit may trigger thoughts of cowboys and hardened dudes, which probably has something to do with John Wayne's True Grit film, which was later remade, turned into a series, and loved by pretty much everyone who saw it. But grit is getting a new identity. It's being used in the psychological sense more and more. And that's what we're talking about today. Mental grit.

[00:00:48] What is grit? Technically, it's defined as firmness of mind or spirit, unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. In psychology, grit is defined as a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort, combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, a powerful motivation to achieve an objective.

[00:01:13] Practically any article you see about grit is going to open with Angela Duckworth's research. She's the author of a book called Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance, and she's been studying the idea for years. Cinder Kamphoff wrote somewhat of a sequel to that book. It's called Beyond Grit. I've read and highly recommend both. Other than compassion and a charitable heart, grit may be the most important character trait your child can learn.

[00:01:40] The successful people of the world rarely did it on intelligence alone, and many of the most successful people admit that they aren't the smartest, but they're all the grittiest in one way or another. So, how is grit and perseverance taught? You can start with a few practices. I'll explain how I see this as a process after I show you the three parts to it. Number one, reframe failure. Your home is a safe place for your kid to fail. You should be a safe person for your kid to fail in front of.

[00:02:10] Mistakes and failures are some of the greatest teachers, if we frame them that way. You don't have to use phrases like fail forward to make this effective. It's the simple act of instilling in your child that failure is a positive thing when we learn from it. Don't always step in and stop them before they have a chance to fail. Let your kids fail, and then coach them into understanding the lesson. Obviously, if something is going to hurt them, stop it before it happens, but I hope that's common knowledge.

[00:02:37] As your kid fails, tries again, and succeeds, encourage him to see where he started and where he is now. Number two, allow challenge. Don't be the parent that takes all opportunities for challenge away from your child. It's tough to see your kid struggling with something. You want to help her, but you've got to let her do it on her own. I've heard people who came from broken childhoods say that they feel sorry for kids who are raised in a good home because they never got the opportunity to deal with adversity.

[00:03:06] That's why some of the most successful and happiest people had the worst childhoods. I'm not saying you should give your child a bad childhood, but allowing controlled challenges is the closest and safest way to instill grit in your kids. In fact, when your child grows up in a good home, that's the only way for them to get experience with adversity, and that's important experience. Number three, encourage constantly.

[00:03:34] Encouragement has to come along with learning from failure and handling challenges. The goal here is to build your child up, not tear them down. Sure, failing and challenging things will tear them down a little bit, but you'll build them up ten times more. Our words are important. Think of all the things people said to you when you were a kid, things they may not remember, but you do. We can't take our words back once they leave our mouths, so make them count and speak positively into your children's lives.

[00:04:03] As I said, it's a three-part process. Reframe failure, allow challenge, and encourage constantly. If you follow the pattern, your child will see failure in a positive light, accept the challenge, fail, learn from failure, overcome obstacles, and fully accept your encouragement along the way. What's the point of grit? When it comes to success, whatever that ends up meaning for your child,

[00:04:31] grit seems to be the common denominator that makes it happen. The ability to focus on and achieve a goal is not common. Grit is what separates those who do from those who merely talk. Grit doesn't equate to rough. You've heard the terms rough-necked or hardened, and that's really not what I'm promoting here. Sure, thick skin is a necessary part of life, but it's not about your child being rough. It's more about being tough, but not your typical schoolyard bully fake toughness.

[00:05:00] Grit is a mental toughness, a real toughness. If we teach intentional living and deliberate practice, we are doing our kids a favor and setting them up to succeed in whatever they venture into. Instilling grit is much easier said than done. Balancing love and protection with letting your kids learn hard-won lessons is difficult, but if you're the one doing it, it's safe. We're all trying to raise mentally strong children who have unlimited potential. Grit does not come naturally.

[00:05:29] It's something that you learn the hard way or the easy way, or not at all. Let your kids learn to be gritty the easy way. It won't be easy for you, but it will be much easier on them. You just listened to the post titled, How to Instill Grit in Your Kids. It's a Three-Part Process, by Kalen Bruce of freedomsprout.com And thanks very much to Kalen for this post.

[00:05:56] I really like the topic of grit because, to me, it's interesting to observe how the value of it is so universally agreed upon, yet if and how it's actually taught has so much variation. And I think this article from Kalen is great because of how binding it is. I really love his thoughts on grit and how to implement it, and I was happy to share it because I feel that many others will see it the same way. You know, when we're instilling grit into our children, it is absolutely possible and necessary to approach it how Kalen has.

[00:06:27] And that's in such a way that the focus is on perseverance as opposed to shame. He speaks a lot about constructive criticism here. And you see how it's always about the task at hand. That's to say that the child's emotions are always kept safe. So shame is never used as a motivating factor. And ideally, it's very obvious to kids that the love they are experiencing from their parents is unconditional

[00:06:52] and an entirely separate matter from what they're trying to achieve or accomplish or be coached into by their parents. And it can be hard for parents to always help kids feel safe like this, you know, because we as parents might get attached to the outcomes. We might be living vicariously through our kids, insisting that we know what's right for them and trying to push their lives in a certain direction to protect them in our eyes. So when trying to instill grit in our kids,

[00:07:18] it's really important to first consider the biases that we might be bringing to this lesson and how those biases could show up behaviorally and how they could have adverse effects on the relationships we have with our children. All right, everyone, that's going to bring us to the end for today. Thanks a lot for staying all the way through and doing right by your relationships today. And I'll hope to have you back here again tomorrow. That's where your optimal life awaits.