The value of Grit and 'being Gritty'

I recently watched this fantastic TED talk on GRIT that is being shared across the internet. It is a video worthy of your time. 

Click here to watch this short TED talk

Angela Lee Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania Psychologist defines grit as the “perseverance and passion for long-term goals".  In a blog post by Jenny Williams, she states it "... is a better indicator of future earnings and happiness than either IQ or talent.” ( https://afineparent.com/building-character/what-is-grit.html )

Duckworth explains her research underscores the need for us all to be ‘gritty’ when helping our kids develop grit.

How can a parent help a child develop grit, you ask?

Duckworth acknowledges that she does not fully know. (Refreshing, right?) A child is unique. Learning is not ‘one size fits all’. We must all learn to learn. How successful you are as lifelong learner is determined by more than just a measurement of IQ or talent.

Learning is a lifelong function and needs a marathon mindset. Learning is not ‘done’ at the end of a grade, or when a project is turned in for a grade.  Learning is not a sprint. Learning is more than memorization and the ability to perform certain tasks and skills. Learning also includes the ability to wait, the ability to reset after failure, and to know that failure is not a permanent state.

Duckworth highlights a ‘growth mindset’, referencing a study from Stanford University, as an important concept to share with students. It actually empowers them to understand what happens to the brain when we learn. The growth mindset concept allows the student to adapt, to wait when needed, and to learn in the struggle. Learning to wait for an hour before playing a video game, waiting your turn in line, waiting to buy something with money saved over time is all part of the ‘growth mindset’ and will ensure a student’s ability to be gritty and thrive.

Duckworth challenges us all to be “more gritty”.

Creating a plan of action that guides our family through busy and demanding times also helps build grit.  It supports a marathon mindset and moves us away from constantly running around putting out fires.

Here is a powerful tool to help your family develop a ‘growth mindset’ and foster grit:  

https://www.finetunedfamilies.com/smaart-goals-land/

Calm the Chaos in Your Home!

Created by Carolyn Pachas-Guest Writer

Are you ready to learn another great idea for calming the chaos in your home?  

Janet Bonnin here, Your Family Growth Coach and I feel your pain. My husband John and I were blessed with three kids who were born in four years! You got it - the oldest was four years old when the baby came and then we had one in between. We had no extended family nearest when we were raising our kids. I didn't feel comfortable asking others to watch all three kids at the same time. So we had lots of energy, noise and a tendency towards chaos during the entire time they were growing up. Let's talk about another great way to get control of the chaos without totally blowing up the family.

It's time to call a family meeting and update your Family Rules!

I know you might be thinking, "We've already got family rules. We've got this covered!" Let's take a look at why it's wise to periodically review and update the family rules, and how the best rules can help calm the chaos in your home. You're going to learn some new things, so stick to this reading.

A few years back, I took some training from a group called Family Wellness Associates who have a great program for helping parents improve their skills. They also train trainers like me. They say, "Rules point the direction for the family by putting the values of the family into action. Rules help people know what to expect."

Family Rules are specific and discrete rules for behavior that have natural or logical consequences if not followed. Let's not make up too many rules, but we need rules and if somebody breaks a rule, we have a natural or logical consequence for breaking it. Using a few well-thought out and carefully phrased rules gives the whole family a framework that lessens arguments and power struggles, right? They know what to expect. They know what the consequence is going to be if they break the rule and it helps children learn right from wrong. Rules may vary from family to family, depending on which principles and values each family sets as their highest priority. Let's take a look at four areas that I think are important to have some rules in and look at a couple of examples in each. 

Four Important Areas for Family Rules 

1. Safety - both Online and In-Person

An example of an Online safety rule might be that all the screens that allow access to the internet are in a main area of the home while the kids are young. Also there are restrictions put on where the kids can go when they're surfing the Internet.  In-Person examples for personal safety are "Always walk with a friend", "Be home before dark", and "Friends can come over as long as mom or dad is home."  

2. Respect Our family and Our Things

Respect goes a long way to keeping arguments at a minimum.  Examples might be "Speak with kind words and a calm voice," and "Knock before opening a closed door."  Respect for privacy is especially important for 'tweens and teens as they get older. Another is "Ask before borrowing someone's things." So many arguments happen when somebody takes something without permission! And finally, a really important rule for all of us is "Always tell the truth."

3. Teamwork

A great example of a Teamwork rule is, "Everyone does his or her chores on time." Another one might be "Help with other things when asked nicely."

4. Learning 

A rule for school and education might be to "Do your best in school and in all things." Now I know that's kind of general, but then that leaves it to the student to decide - am I doing my best in all things? Here's a rule. "Keep up with studies and homework." Also, "Ask for help if needed."  In the area of electronics, a rule might be "No screen time during homework," and "The curfew for all screens is (designate the time)." Make sure that they all agree with this.

Reasons for a Family Meeting

Get your kids involved with a Family Meeting. They know there's got to be some rules, and if you invite them again to be part of the discussion, they will be more willing to obey the rules that everybody agrees to. Note that this can and will change as your kids mature.  

Once you figure out the rules, write them down, and place them visible somewhere they can be seen.  Everyone will respect them because you've had the family meeting, you've agreed on them, and here they are, posted. 

Consistency is the key  

Consistency is another key in keeping battles down. If your kids know there's going to be a consequence each and every time, they're going to be more likely to obey. 


Janet Bonnin, Your Family Growth Coach, has worked with families since 2001 to deepen connections and improve communication, so all can lower stress and thrive.  Visit www.finetunedfamilies.com to learn how how.

This blog was written by Carolyn Pachas-Guest Writer for Janet Bonnin-Family Growth Coach

Teacher Talk Series: The Elementary Years - 4 Ideas To Help Students Succeed This Year

The "Wise Parents, Wise Kids" video chat between Janet Bonnin, Angela Woodrow and guest Karen Aitken, Veteran Elementary School Teacher, was really fun and filled with ideas!  You can see that by going here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eog47S36Tqc

If you'd rather read about it, here are some highlights:

FTF:  As a fantastic veteran teacher, please share some ideas to help students become successful learners.

Karen Aitken:

1         Teach problem solving.  Being brilliant doesn’t mean you have memorized everything.  Instead, I emphasize how to use resources, such as notes they’ve taken, to find the answers.  It is not what you do for kids that make them successful; it is what you’ve trained them to do for themselves.

2        Practice organizational skills.  Create habits of self-awareness and self-sufficiency. Put some structure in the classroom (or home) of where things go – completed assignments, backpacks, etc.  The more organized a child is, the less stress a child feels, especially when time is tight.  The homework is not done until it is in your folder which is in your backpack.

3         Learn to be an Active Listener.  Help children create Active Listening habits by periodically checking in to ask what they have heard in their own words.  With encouragement and practice, kids can become an Active Listener, which is important to great communication. 

4         Take ownership of yourself.  Students are often used to someone doing things for them.  Instead, encourage them to show responsibility for their tasks, like getting homework done, without prompting. Being responsible for choices, actions and emotions at this young age are building blocks for success and confidence as they grow.  “Reader’s Theater Work Ethic Kits” help kids learn real life examples of grownups who don’t have good habits.

Resources for Parents and Teachers:

www.classroommastery.com

www.teacherspayteachers.com

www.theteachingexperiencepodcast.com

Parent Tip:  Create a place at home where your child keeps their backpack, jacket, lunchbox, shoes, etc.  This can help them learn to be organized by having a routine, and relieve the anxiety of panicking while looking for these items when they are trying to get ready for school.

Remember, parents and teachers are the significant adults in children’s lives.  When we have the expectation and verbalize that a child will be successful, the child rises to that level.

Help Your Child Master This Skill for Success in Life - Part 2

As we discussed in last week's blog post, a key concept to help our children to master is that of delayed gratification. This is the ability to put off or resist an immediate reward in order to gain a larger reward later. Helping our sons and daughters learn this important skill can set them up for greater success and satisfaction in life.

Lets look at several simple ways we can teach our children how to delay gratification:

·     Play Impulse Control Games- When our kids are young, an easy way to teach and practice delayed gratification is by playing impulse control games like “Simon Says”, “Red Light / Green Light”, or “Follow the Leader”.

·     Teach About Feelings vs. Behaviors- Help children control their impulses by helping them learn the difference between feelings and behaviors. For example, if your young child throws or hits things when he or she gets angry, you could explain that although he or she is feeling mad, it is not okay to act out because of that anger. Understanding the difference between feelings and behaviors will help your child better control impulses.

·      Practice Problem Solving Skills- Problem solving skills are essential to delayed gratification.  Help your child learn how to think about the pros and cons to decisions before he or she acts. For smaller decisions, kids can mentally think or talk about the pros and cons of a decision. However, for larger decisions, encourage your child to make a list of the pros and cons of each option he or she is considering.

·      Provide Clear and Consistent Rules and Expectations- Keeping clear and consistent family rules and expectations as your children are growing allows them to gain firsthand experience of the impact of the choices they make. They can use that experience and apply it to decisions outside of the home, learning their actions have consequences and that some decisions are better than others.

·      Model Delayed Gratification- One of the best ways to teach your children how to delay gratification is to model it. Let your son or daughter see you put off an immediate reward for a later, longer lasting one, and talk about it with him or her.  If, for example, your family loves to eat sweets, you might model to your children that you choose to have a nice dessert once or twice a week, rather than eating candy daily.   By waiting to eat your dessert and talking about your reasons for doing it, you model healthier eating habits and a willingness to delay gratification in your life.

Delayed gratification is a very important skill for children of all ages to master. When kids are young, the consequences of impulsive decisions are usually fairly small.  As children grow, the consequences of their decisions are much greater. Many young people, for example, look forward to graduating from high school, but dread moving on to college or technical training.  The reward for those extra years of schooling is greater financial security and more control over many aspects of one’s life.  Watch for ways to help your children learn the power of delayed gratification for making better decisions in life.

Help Your Child Master This Skill for Success in Life

As parents, we desire to help our children grow to be relatively happy and able to easily provide for themselves in adulthood.  One of the keys to both comes through helping our children master is the skill of delayed gratification. In a nutshell, delayed gratification is the ability to put off or resist a small temptation now, in order to gain a larger reward later. For example, a teenager faced with choice of hanging out with friends or studying for a math test the next day would be practicing delayed gratification by choosing to study now and hang out with friends after taking the test. Helping our kids to learn the value of delaying gratification can set them up to be more successful later in life, as numerous studies have demonstrated.

Psychologist Dr. Walter Mischel performed a now famous study on delayed gratification in the 1960s. His test was simple. Children were brought one at a time into an empty room save for a table with marshmallows. The instructor told each child that he would be leaving the room for a few moments and the child could eat one marshmallow while he was away, but if he or she waited until he returned, the child could eat two marshmallows. Not surprisingly, many of the children chose not to wait and ate their marshmallow before the instructor returned. However, several children were able to delay their gratification and receive the two marshmallows. Dr. Mischel followed that group of children for about 50 years after the experiment, examining how the ability to delay gratification affected many aspects of their lives. He found that the children who were able to delay gratification had lower BMIs as adults, less addiction rates, higher SAT scores, and even a lower rate of divorce.  Dr. Mischel also noted that the children who showed great self-control were “more able to sustain effort and deal with frustration” when pursuing their goals.

This study greatly illustrates the importance of teaching children how to have self-control and delay gratification. As parents, there are many simple ways we can teach and model to our children how to delay gratification.  We will look at ways to do this in next week’s blog.

Simple Ideas to Organize Your Student And DeStress Your Evenings! Part 2

“Mom! Dad!  Help me!  I’ve got a test tomorrow and I don’t know what to do!  I can’t find my review notes and I don’t  know how to get started!”

“Hmmmm, You've been home for 3 hours and you haven’t been studying.  This is a familiar pattern.  Let's see what we can do for this test and then discuss what we can do differently next time.”

Sound familiar? One of the best gifts to help our kids develop is that of homework and study habits that help them do their best in school.  In this second of a two-part series, let’s look at a few more ideas for doing just that:

Design a Few Simple Rules and Expectations – Watch the flow of a typical evening to identify “bumpy” areas that could benefit from a rule. When a few rules are in place and consistently enforced, you and your child will find the evenings less stressful. Examples of good rules might be “Your homework isn’t finished until it is loaded in the backpack" and “Homework gets done before the electronics go on”.

Organize backpacks, homework and clothes the night before –To prevent weekday morning chaos, which can result in a child forgetting his or her homework or lunch, have your student pull together what she or he needs for the school day the night before.  You might help your young child design a school day checklist and then use the checklist to make sure they have what they need the night before. Encourage your child to lay out the outfit they want to wear the next day before going to bed, as well. This will save both of you a lot of time in the morning.

Designate an area for each student’s school items - A cubby or area with a basket could hold books, graded papers, a backpack and any other school-related items. Everything can go back in the cubby at the end of the homework period. Now your student knows right where to look to find his or her school things the next morning!

Designate a Homework and Study Area –This area should preferably be at a table, be well-lit, and away from possible distractions. Having a designated spot for completing homework and studying will keep your child on task and will help ensure that school materials stay together.

Declutter –It’s a good idea to help your child file loose papers in their proper locations once a week.  You might have them go through their rooms and homework areas and recycle papers they don’t need anymore. For older students, encourage them to declutter their laptops or desktop computers by deleting documents or downloads that they don’t need to keep.

These tips can help in smoothing the flow of weekday evenings. As your student matures into the Tween and Teen years, encourage and expect him or her to do this independently. Good task management skills are vital to any busy person and will help your child not only in the growing up years but throughout his or her adult life.

What the Floods in Texas Can Teach Our Children

The storms and flooding in Texas over Memorial Day weekend had tragic consequences. Several people died, many more are missing, vehicles were swept away, and many people were left stranded, unable to reach home. Many have posted videos of flooding in Boerne and San Antonio.  One of the most sobering showed a Jeep being swept away by flood waters in Boerne. The driver made it out of his vehicle in time, but his was a very rare case.  My 20 year old son and his girlfriend were at a party on Saturday when the weather worsened.  Thankfully, the host parents decided the best course of action was to turn the party into a sleepover to keep all the kids at the party and off the roads until the waters subsided.

Though we do our best to trust our children will follow our advice and make good choices, parents of teens and young adults often feel some fear and stress each time they see their child pull out of the driveway. It can be a real struggle to teens and young adults to focus on safety behind the wheel when, at these stages in their development, they often feel invincible.

Situations like the flooding over the weekend provide a great opportunity to pass on the vital parental wisdom to seemingly “invincible” teens and young adults that one poor decision can have tragic consequences. In this case, deciding to drive through seemingly slow moving water or around a barricade is a choice that could end lives - that of the driver, passengers, and sometimes even rescue workers.

Make time to talk to your sons and daughters about incidents like these, using age-appropriate language, while they are still fresh in everyone’s minds.  Exploring the feelings around the tragedies helps everyone process them in a healthy manner.  Discussing what happened and what other choices a person might have made can help your children learn critical lessons that will stick with them, and help them to be more mindful and cautious if dangerous situations arise in their futures.

Natural Consequences: Helping Kids Learn from Their Choices

Eric, Julie's 16 year old son, hurries through the house, running a bit late as usual.  Eric decides he is not hungry enough to eat before leaving the house.  Julie knows that Eric has several hours of band practice today, in addition to his normal full day at school.  While she could push him to eat something, Julie recognizes this is another great learning opportunity for Eric while the cost of that lesson is still relatively cheap.  Why is she thinking that?  Let's take a quick look and see.

Life is full of decisions.  As adults, the easier and better those decisions are, the lower our stress levels are and the greater our life satisfaction is.  Our kids will need great decision making skills as adults.  The way to help them get there is to offer plenty of choices from a young age, all of which are acceptable to you as the parent.   "Would you like to do your homework now or after your snack?"  "Do you want to go see your friend today or tomorrow after school?"  "Do you want to read your book or play a game of cards with me right now?"  When our kids are young, the scale of their decisions is relatively limited.  Any poor choices, with the natural consequences that follow, come at  a relatively small expense - a bargain in the learning arena.

As our kids mature, we as parents gradually step back and give them more and more power to make decisions in their lives.  At a late high school and early adult level, the scale of these decisions are much farther reaching.  "You've been having trouble getting out the door on time for your high school classes lately.  What might you do to keep from having to hire someone to get you there?"  An older teen or young adult who regularly chooses to spend time with friends when he or she needs to be studying will likely struggle academically, which may limit or eliminate the possibility of attending college.  He or she might choose to take risks while driving, resulting in a serious accident.  Regardless, the ever widening scope of their control over their own lives leaves them open to more serious consequences when a poor choice is made.

Our daily decisions bring natural consequences in our adult lives.  One of the best ways to help our kids mature is to lovingly let them make as many decisions as possible while they are young. 


And what of Julie and Eric?  The next morning, a wiser Eric noted that he'd better eat a good breakfast because, "today is going to be a very long day".  Another important lesson learned!