Raising children in today’s competitive environment has become a challenging task for parents. Parenting itself has become challenging. Everyday, there are new circumstances and challenges that need to be faced by children as well as parents. In this article, we talk about How Children Succeed and why grit and determination are important.
In recent years, many child experts and psychologists tell us that they are seeing much less grit and determination in children as well as in adults. Many parents want to make life easy for their children. In this process, they end up doing things which actually need to be done by their children. Parents make every effort to see that their children are successful in their school projects, sports and academics by constantly helping them. This has resulted in children depending on their parents for everything. Also nowadays children expect success easily and when they don’t get it, they easily give up and get depressed.
Research has indicated that “grit “ is an important element for future success and happiness. When children fail but show perseverance and try again till they succeed, they grow up as responsible and gritty individuals who are ready to face life’s challenges.
First of all, let’s understand what grit is all about ? In simple terms, it is a combination of passion, perseverance and discipline to achieve your goals. It is also to stay focused and positive towards achieving your goals in the face of rejection and defeat.
Generally, it is observed that children coming from loving, stable and kind homes are able to face difficulty and overcome failure. However children who come from a a tough family environment and have to struggle and fight it out are more prone to be gritty and persevering in achieving their goals.
So the next question that comes up is, “can we help in making our children more gritty and persevering? Yes, to some extent we can definitely help in building resilience and focus in them.
How Children Succeed
Here are some tips in making your child more gritty and persevering –
1. Find an activity that your child likes or is passionate about it.
One of the best ways to get started is to find out an area that your child is very passionate about and likes to do. Once you are aware of their interest, then you can start pushing them to do more difficult things in that area. In the beginning, it will be easy but as the tasks get difficult, they will find it more challenging. In the process, they will face failure. Encourage them to keep practicing as practice makes a man perfect.
My daughter is an excellent piano player and she loves to play the piano from her childhood. Many a time when she starts practicing the difficult music pieces, she used to get easily demotivated if she did not get the scales or music piece right in the first couple of trails. But as I encouraged her to keep practicing, no matter how many times she commits mistakes, she has now learnt some of the most difficult music pieces.
Today she knows that, if she wants to excel in any field, she needs to keep practicing. The sheer joy of getting the music pieces right after a lot of practice and hard work is amazing to watch.
You can do the same with your children, by starting with an area that they love or are passionate about. The idea is to teach them to persevere and work harder in order to excel and get the best result.
2. Encourage them to pursue their area of interest.
It is important to encourage and give children a little push to pursue their passion. Sometimes children are interested but are not willing to make an effort and persevere in order to achieve their goals.
As parents, you need to guide them by showing them the advantages of working hard towards their goals. It is important to motivate them to achieve their long-term goals.
[content-egg module=Amazon template=grid]3. Help your children to handle failure.
Today we find that perseverance and grit (tenacity) are hard to find. Once they have met with failure, children are ready to give up in that area. Many times when children receive setbacks, failures or painful rejections, they are overwhelmed and do not wish to pursue in that area. It is in these times that parents need to step in and teach their children that failure is not permanent. It is important to be positive and hopeful to face and change challenging circumstances.
It is important to communicate and talk to them regularly. Share with them your own or other family members experiences on how failures were turned into successes due to sheer grit and perseverance.
In the process don’t be overprotective and comfort them too often. It is important to let them live their life and get a first-hand experience of failure and rejection. Then they will value the reward of success which comes after failure through sheer grit and determination.
4. Encourage them to take risks.
One thing common about successful people is that they are willing to take risks. It is important to teach your children to take risks. Ask them to come out of their comfort zone and do something fresh and new regularly. It is important to discuss failure with your children, so that they are aware that it is human to err and there is nothing wrong with it. Learning from their parent’s real-life situations helps in bonding together and also in learning important life lessons.
Let your children know that frustration, rejection, confusion etc are the stepping stones to success. You have to face and overcome them to reach your goal. Teach them to stay focused and not to get distracted in the path of achieving their long-term objectives.
Finally, let your child know that they are loved, no matter whether they are successful or not. However at the same time, it is equally important on their part to give their best and not run away at the first sign of failure. They need to keep trying till they are satisfied that they have given their best. In the pursuit of perseverance, success will definitely follow.
Hope you enjoyed this article on How Children Succeed.
Please read our earlier article Discipline Your Children
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Tags: Determination, Grit, How Children Succeed
Good food for thought