Angela Duckworth defines “grit” as the ability to persevere combined with an ability to pursue interests and passions over a long period of time to attain goals.  She argues that this learnable quality is a predictor of success.  More recently, her research has led to a focus on self-control as the underlying skill needed to become gritty. Check out her TED Talk

to understand more about “grit”.  She references another important idea called “growth mindset” coined by Carol Dweck.  It is the idea that intelligence is not fixed and can change based on experiences.  To understand more about growth mindset, watch this video by Carol DweckThese ideas are now gaining momentum in the classroom.  As summer approaches, students are leaving classrooms that may be building these skills.  Expensive summer camps and programs do help kids get experiences that build these skills, but there are lots of simple ways to build these skills that can happen on the weekends for very little money.  They also give families time to do things together whereas camps and other paid programs are not usually family inclusive.  What can parents do over the summer to to build and maintain these skills?

1.  Try New Things

Trying new activities and going to new places gives kids an opportunity to develop strategies that can help them deal with new situations in general.  Novelty can be intimidating; the unfamiliar can be scary.  The more new experiences kids engage in, the more strategies they acquire for dealing with novel situations in the future.  Look around your neighborhood or stretch a short distance.  Is there a museum you have never been to? A hike you have never attempted? A new park or beach? These local activities may not be a trip to Disney World, but they are free or low cost ways for family to connect and for kids to build skills associated with “grit”.

2. Set Goals

Setting goals and working to attain them is a necessary part of increasing “grit”.  One of the characteristics of “grit” is the ability to follow through and maintain an interest in order to really “go deep”.  Setting goals, breaking a task down into parts to make it attainable, these are necessary skills.  Try creating a family goal.  Maybe you all enjoy hiking and agree to hike 5 new mountains this summer, try 10 new foods, learn to do three new things, exercise every day.  Whatever the goal, it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is the follow through.  You could do a family goal or individual goals.  If you can’t get the kids involved, you can model this for them.  Create you own goal and keep track of its completion on the fridge.  Openly share how you are dealing with setbacks and failures.  How to keep going after a failure?

3. Play games

Playing games gives kids the opportunity to lose and develop strategies for improvement.  Many kids will lose and still enjoy themselves.  You can talk to them about what strategies they used and what other ones they could try.  You can model being a loser who works toward improving your game.  If you have enough family members, team up with your children so you can problem solve together.  These are opportunities for you to model perseverance when you are not succeeding.  Many times, it takes multiple tries at something before experiencing success.  Children who can work at something even when they have not succeeded are more likely to eventually reach success.  If you have very young children, they may have very short attention spans, but encouraging them to go just a little bit further than they might have can help them build the capacity to persevere.

4.  Volunteer

Volunteering is a wonderful and free way to engage in your community and with your interests.  It helps kids develop connections with community members in areas that interest them.  It allows them to extend their interests into the larger world.  The act of doing something for the sole purpose of providing service with no expectation of getting anything in return provides an opportunity for kids to experience the reward of simply feel good about providing value.  Receiving money for completing a job can feel good and there is nothing wrong with that, but there is an emotional gain from doing something for the purpose of just helping someone else.  This reward can have a long-term effect on values.  Once kids feel the benefits of providing service, they will be likely to continue this.  Providing service can improve social skills and the ability to understand diverse groups of people.  These are all important and marketable skills that will increase achievement academically and in your child’s future career.

5.  Garden

Gardening is another activity that requires delayed gratification.  Growing something requires some effort and also has a waiting period.  Eating something that you have nurtured and grown is so satisfying. If you lack space, gardening in large pots is a good option.  Tomatoes, lettuce and herbs are easily grown in pots.  Gardening can lead to cooking, composting and a whole host of other activities.  But related to developing “grit”, gardening allows kids to experience waiting for something; self control is an important skill for school and for learning.

6.  Learn something new

Whenever we learn something new, we go through a process that requires us to work through frustration.  Learning new things is difficult but also fun.  Finding something that you can learn together as a parent/ child team or as a family gives kids an opportunity to work through some of these frustrations with modeling and support from you.  There are some really fun and free things you can do together.  I was recently intrigued by a website about magic tricks, Magic Tricks for kids, which does a great job of engaging parents and kids in learning how to do magic tricks.  In addition to the abundance of resources available on the internet, check out your local newspaper for outdoor activities like orienteering; new or unusual activities that might be kid friendly are wonderful opportunities to learn together.  Last summer I witnessed a mother daughter team taking a hip hop dance class together.  It was new for both of them and they had a great time. Encourage kids to pursue personal interests out in their community; cooking, various sports, crafts, religion, pets, photography, art and any number of other hobbies or interests could be a catalyst for learning something new with our child.

7. Allow boredom

Don’t try to save your kids from being bored.  Being bored is a part of existence.  Let them work through it.  When you notice that they have worked through it, help them reflect on what they did.  Help them articulate the behaviors they exhibited that helped them so they can recreate those behaviors the next time they are bored.  Be specific when stating the behaviors that our child exhibited to solve the problem.  Check out more on the benefits of boredom in this BBC article.

8. Pay for Work

Here is an easy idea to help kids build strength around delayed gratification.  Being able to wait for the benefits of hard work and steady effort increases a child’s ability to keep at something long enough to reap the benefits.  During the summer, there are all kinds of extra jobs that need to get done around the house.  A whole host of outdoor chores in addition to the usual house chores that now kids can contribute to since they have the time.  Build a list of chores that need to get done around the house and attach a monetary value to each chore. Have kids track their hours and pay them weekly or monthly.  Encourage them to save up for something and then buy it with their hard earned money.

Kids learn a lot in the “real school” of life.  Creating these opportunities is easy and more fun than the routine of most traditional schools.  Bring it back around and reflect on the learning that happened and kids will internalize these skills, bring them into the school setting and experience success in many areas of life.  For fun, track your family activities on a blog or through photos as a way for you and your kids to reflect on how these activities are having an impact.  For more on aspects of “grit”, check out this Edutopia Video and article about Grit.  If you want to go further into this topic, try taking a free summer course yourself.  Teaching Achievement addresses the idea of “grit” as well as other related topics.  Above all, have fun!