The Gift of Grit

Are you training your children to be gritty?

I spoke to the Grammar School students a while back about grit, which I defined for them as “sticking with it till the end, even when the going gets tough.” When I envision grit, I picture a cross country runner who is nearing the end of the race – sweating, panting, almost out of strength. It’s raining and muddy. She stumbles and falls in the mud. But she grits her teeth, pulls herself out of the muck, rises, and finishes the race. That is a woman with purpose and determination – she’s gritty. That is who we want our children to become, both on the cross-country course and in the course of life.

Growing up in the modern world habituates us to expect things to come easy and be pain-free. Zap it in the microwave, and 2 minutes later it’s cooked. If you don’t know something, Google it and magically receive an infinite number of answers in seconds. Order anything you want from Amazon or Walmart.com with a few clicks, and it shows up at your door the next day. If something is hard or slow, find another, quicker, easier option.

Easy and pain-free? Life is not really like that. Real living takes hard work, determination, endurance, strength, and commitment. Christ calls us to take up His cross (Luke 9:23). To be like Christ is to endure hardship faithfully (Heb 12:1-2). Our Father sends discipline our way, just as He did Israel, and the pain and endurance that result are evidence of His fatherly love and care (Heb 12:3-11).

We don’t do our children any favors when we raise them expecting that when problems come up, it’s ok to either avoid them or take them to mom or dad to make them go away. Struggle is good for children. Children are antifragile, and the right level of hardship makes them stronger and grows their character.

Angela Duckworth, author of the book 2018 Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, said,

Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Duckworth asserts that grit is a much better predictor of success than talent or intelligence. From my years of observing successful people, I have to agree with her.

Keith McCurdy agrees as well. At his website livesturdy.com, Keith writes,

As we have gone further down the road of embracing the “therapeutic” approach to parenting, we have lost both our ability to parent well and raise children who can handle the normal rigors of life.  When parents, knowingly or unknowingly, minimize natural disappointments for their children, or intervene to rescue them from difficulty or relational conflict, they win a short-term victory at the cost of a much larger long-term goal. In the moment, easy feels great. But struggle is inherently uncomfortable and often upsetting to children. The reality is that struggle is required in order for children to grow into “sturdy adults” – adults who can face life’s challenges with maturity, resilience and perseverance. If we want our children to be able to do hard things, we must allow them to struggle.

Keith is describing grit – and how needful it is for parents to raise sturdy kids.

So, parents, I ask again: Are you training your children to be gritty?