Dr. Angela Duckworth, author of the phenomenal book Grit, has something in her family they call the Hard Thing Rule: Everyone (including the parents) has to choose something that requires deliberate daily practice, and they have to stick with it for a substantial period of time. If you read her book, you’ll find overwhelming evidence that this kind of striving cultivates lasting resilience in children. They’re put in a position where they must fail, over and over, while developing skills and intuition that take many hundreds of practices to emerge. Along the way, they learn that dedication and a willingness to persevere can produce abilities that people who’ve never been pushed to do hard things can only envy.
Alex and Brett Harris arrived at similar conclusions by way of a very different path, co-authoring at 18 years old the book Do Hard Things, in which they protest the modern-day notion that teenagers aren’t capable of handling high expectations. The Harris brothers believe we hamstring young people by putting their self-esteem and comfort above their development. They argue for pushing teenagers into spaces where they are uncomfortable, because this is the only way that genuine growth and long-term achievement can happen.
It’s hard and frightening as a parent, watching our children fail. Our instinct is to protect them, to help them. It’s so much easier to feed our two year-old rather than let him try to work a fork. On his own he gets food in his hair, he makes tine-marks on the table, and sometimes he jabs himself in the cheek. Who needs all that trouble?
But the easy-way-out attitude is infectious. By staying in our own comfort zones and avoiding messes, injuries, tears, and disappointments, we spread the love of comfort to our kids. We selfishly spare ourselves the unhappiness of seeing them strive, fail, and suffer, and by doing so we handicap them. The result is kids who can’t work a paring knife or do a somersault. Who can’t resolve an argument or apply for a job without help. Who have a string of one- or two-month enthusiasms that never panned out.
My family has three generations of wrestlers, so here’s a quick story to illustrate what this habit entails. I watched a wrestling team one year that had a very supportive coach. He wanted all the kids to have fun. To feel included. These were certainly laudable goals. The problem was that in the process of helping them feel good about themselves, he didn’t make them feel bad about themselves.
What I mean is that he never worked them so hard in practice that somebody who’d made bad lunchtime choices threw up. He never saw them doing a sloppy move and made them all drill it a hundred times in excruciatingly small detail until they’d mastered it. He never benched a kid for giving up in the middle of a match.
The result was a bunch of kids who were out of shape, most of whom had losing records. Is that a long-term recipe for self-esteem? Of course not.
Contrast that with the next coach. When the season started, he drilled the kids so hard the first week that several quit. They hadn’t signed up for something hard, after all. The worst part of it is this: Their parents just let them quit.
You and I both know those kids will quit the next hard thing they face, and the next one after that.
The kids who stayed on the team all had moments they wished they could quit, too. They bled and puked and cursed and cried. But at the end of the season, the ones who stuck it out walked with their shoulders held back. They didn’t all have winning records, but each of them had a letter on his jacket that meant something. Most important, they have more confidence the next time they face a challenge in life.
That’s what this habit is about, fathers. Getting out of our own comfort zones by pushing our children outside theirs.
We don’t want to determine what they’re going to commit to, but we should make them choose something to commit to for an extended period of time. Whether it’s a sport, or photography, or woodworking, or chess doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s hard, and that they can’t quit.
And of course as with many virtues, the best way to help our children develop one is to cultivate it within ourselves. So think about something hard you can commit to as a show of solidarity. And stick to it for a season.
Additional Resources
Do Hard Things. The Harris brothers issue a call for teenage rebellion against low expectations.
He’s Not Lazy. Child psychologist Adam Price offers a hopeful diagnosis and prescription for boys who are “checking out” of life.
Grit. Angela Duckworth’s book is packed with examples, data, and inspiration for every parent who wants resilient children, as well as those of us who could use more grit in in ourselves.