One of my favorite pastimes is college sports. I love a fall day with college football or a daylong March Madness binge. Since moving to the South, I’ve even come to enjoy watching college baseball, something that I would never have thought I’d do when I lived in Michigan.
If you’re a college sports enthusiast, then I’m sure you’ve heard of “the transfer portal.” For those of you who haven’t heard of the transfer portal (commonly known as just “the portal”), it is a database of all the college athletes who have decided that they want to transfer to a new institution to resume their athletic career (and academic, of course!). The portal has become an integral part of all college sports, as college athletes are transferring at higher rates than ever before. Indeed, more than 1,000 basketball players entered into the portal this past year.
Why do I bring this up in a column about mental health?
Well, I believe that the transfer portal is a prime example of a lack of grit that is pervasive in our culture.
It’s not hard to understand why grit is an important characteristic to develop, as any adult can tell you that life is full of ups and downs that require resilience. But science has been able to document how vital grit is to leading a successful life, perhaps most famously through the Stanford Marshmallow experiment. In this experiment, children were given an option between eating one marshmallow immediately or having two if they waited while the scientist left the room. The results of the experiment showed that the children who were able to delay their gratification the longest had higher likelihoods of successful lives as adults.
We obviously want our children to develop grit, so what are some things that we can do to help that?
Angela Duckworth, a psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has studied how we can develop grit both in our own lives and our children’s. Duckworth first says that gritty people often both show passion and perseverance in their lives. We often think of grit and perseverance as synonymous, but Duckworth claims that more people struggle with finding something that they are passionate about than with demonstrating perseverance. She highlights that passions are developed, so it is important to expose our children to different experiences to help them determine what passions they have. She also discusses how our passions are innate to us and that no passion is inherently better than another one.
So what factor is the biggest reason for children to develop grit, according to Duckworth’s research?
The biggest reason for children to begin to develop their own grit is by seeing their parents model grit in their own lives. When you think about it, this makes sense. Our children are constantly learning from what they see their parents doing, so if you want to develop grit in your children, be intentional to show them grit in your own life.
But Duckworth adds that there are also other things that parents can do to help their children develop grit. Particularly in today’s instant gratification culture, our children can miss out on the struggle that is real life. A prime example of this is the YouTube channel “Dude Perfect,” where a group of men perform highly difficult trick shots. When our children watch these videos, they don’t see the thousands of missed shots, but only the stream of seemingly perfect attempts at incredibly hard tasks. Duckworth explains how vital it is for our children to see people fail at something and continue to try to do it.
A second way that you can help your child develop grit, Duckworth says, is by giving them manageable tasks that they can master, helping them gain confidence to slowly try more and more difficult things.
This rang particularly true to me as a math teacher. I see students who consistently believe that they are no good at math gain confidence as they master basic math concepts.
Help your children to develop grit in their own lives by finding things that they are passionate about, showing them times that you and others fail but continue to persist, and giving them attainable goals.
But perhaps most importantly, show them grit in your own life!
- Mischa McCray is a licensed professional counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Send questions or topics you’d like him to discuss to mmccray@wpcgreenwood.org.
