Unlock Your Child's Potential: The Science Behind Grit, Curiosity, and Character Development

Aravind: What a great insight to have as a human being.. this book could easily be renamed to 'how people succeed'..

India on May 21, 2023

Snidley: The one example I didn't like in the book was that of the chess teacher who verbally chastised students for making mistakes. In the book she is described as telling them to 'just quit if they were going to make stupid mistakes like that' (paraphrase). It was during her examination of the child's chess games after a match. A mistake an be pointed out in a way that doesn't insult a child. Motivation doesn't have to be negative. I think there is an ends justifies the means mindset with regards to verbally insulting students; it seems to work so keep doing it. But what are the long term effects? Do these students continue playing chess? Do all students flourish under this type of teaching style? It isn't A or Z, where either you are babying a student or insult them. I don't think any of us would like to work in an environment where our boss verbally reprimanded us in this way, even if it did get results (I suspect only temporary results). The chess teacher blogged that she felt she was being abusive to the students but that her style seemed to work, especially with the female chess players because perhaps the opposing females players didn't have teachers who would dare to talk to them...

Canada on May 23, 2020

Nicholas: Review courtesy of www.subtleillumination.com

How Children Succeed follows on from the classic Mischel work on self control and examines the importance of character (things like self-control, optimism, and grit), not just intelligence, in adult outcomes. Tough points out that measures of character are as good at predicting success in later life as measures of intelligence, and that measures of intelligence can be disturbingly flawed: one study found that offering M&Ms for each correct answer increased IQ scores by 12 points for kids at the bottom of the distribution.

One of the most fascinating chapters, though, is on stress. On the savannah, when we see a lion every possible system activates in order to get us out of trouble: we breathe faster, we have more white blood cells, our muscles tense, etc. This response is essential for survival, but wears our body out over time. He argues the same happens today when people have stressful childhoods: their systems become overloaded and wear out, and they find it difficult to regulate thoughts and emotions later in life. If we measure stress levels as children and control for them, the effect of poverty on adult...

United Kingdom on Feb 04, 2015

William Jordan: This book has a very interesting central thesis - that what makes for success in life is not primarily innate abilities, but rather qualities of character, and that these can be taught. They can be taught for example through expert parenting (rats who lick and groom their infants, human parents who promote secure attachment in their children) through school programme of character building (two contrasting approaches, for rich and poor children are described - neither seemed all that convincing to this reader), through chess programmes at an inner city school (clearly good at helping children learn chess - but the author remarks of the clearly very remarkable chess teacher in question that she is probably happier being married now than when she was personally maxing out her chess ranking). American students can also be helped in their college careers through a mix of intensive tuition, mapping out the paths to college entry (knowing what institutions to apply to etc), and 'non cognitive academic skills' ie working on a completer-finisher mentality, which may matter more than anything else.

This certainly held my attention - and makes an interesting contribution to the really...

United Kingdom on Jun 22, 2013

Dr. Peter Davies: I got this book out of interest and as I have a five year old daughter.

This book is interesting, useful, but not complete. However there is more than enough in it to strongly recommend it to other readers- especially if you have children, or are involved in teaching them or creating social policy around them.

It has an excellent opening section on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and their effect on future development. The eight main ones are:-
Physical abuse
Sexual abuse
Emotional abuse
Social and emotional neglect
Divorced/separated parents
Family members in prison
Family members with mental illness
Family members with addiction problems

For myself and my daughter I was relieved I hadn't given her any of them! Thinking more broadly I thought of how many children I see in my practice in my medical practice in a mixed area of Halifax who have experienced these problems. My experience seems similar to that of Dr Nadine Burke Harris (paediatrician) in California and Dr Dozier (teacher) in Chicago. That feeling that "the best tools available to them in their chosen professions were simply not up to the challenges they faced" rang true...

United Kingdom on Apr 23, 2013

B Leyden: GRIT AND CHARACTER: CHILDREN SUCCEED WHO HAVE IT; THOSE WHO DON'T WON'T

I. GED DEGREES ARE WORTHLESS. IQ or intelligence, by itself, has little to do with a child's ultimate success. America once believed the contrary: that what schools develop, and what a high school degree certifies, is cognitive skill. Thus, if a teenager has proven this skill through passing the GED exam, then she doesn't have to waste her time actually finishing high school. We now know this is false. In terms of all kinds of important future outcomes - annual income, unemployment rate, divorce rate, use of illegal drugs and college accomplishments - GED holders look exactly like every other high school drop-out. Yes, the GED measures intelligence. But it signifies nothing more.
II. THE ACQUISITION OF NON-COGNITIVE SKILLS SUCH AS GRIT, CURIOSITY AND CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. These are what economists refer to as noncognitive skills, that psychologists call personality traits and that the rest of us sometimes think of as character. Developing many other kinds of skill - such as in vocabulary and math - is a simple matter of starting earlier and practicing more. If you want to perfect your foul shot,...

United States on Dec 31, 2012

Gail Cornwall: After devouring "Brain Rules for Baby" like a hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie, I spied the title "How Children Succeed" and scarfed up Paul Tough's latest journalistic endeavor; it was like expecting a chips ahoy and sinking my teeth into a kettle chip.

You see, "How Children Succeed" is not a parenting book. Tough offers only a few pieces of broad strokes guidance. He states: "[S]cientists have demonstrated that the most reliable way to produce an adult who is brave and curious and kind and prudent is to ensure that when he is an infant, his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functions well. And how do you do that? It is not magic. First, as much as possible, you protect him from serious trauma and chronic stress; then, even more important, you provide him with a secure, nurturing relationship with at least one parent and ideally two." Tough also cautions us parents to balance "our urge to provide everything for our child, to protect him from all harm" against "our knowledge that if we really want him to succeed, we need to first let him fail." That's it, folks. Parents searching for new ideas or practical tips will be disappointed.

But those who remember...

United States on Dec 07, 2012