Grit(61)

Of course, Rhonda was right, and in so many words, I changed the item accordingly.

But the most important thing about Rhonda’s story is that she almost never got back up all by herself. Instead, she figured out that asking for help was a good way to hold on to hope.

Here’s just one of the stories she told me: “I had this mentor who knew, even before I did, that I was going to be a mathematician. It all started when I’d done very poorly on one of his tests, and I went to his office and cried. All of a sudden, he jumped up out of his chair and, without a word, ran out of the room. When, finally, he came back he said, ‘Young lady, you should go to graduate school in mathematics. But you’re taking all of the wrong courses.’ And he had all of the courses I should have been taking mapped out, and the personal promises of other faculty that they’d help.”

About twenty years ago, Rhonda cofounded the EDGE Program with Sylvia Bozeman, a fellow mathematician. EDGE stands for Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education, and its mission is to support women and minority students pursuing doctoral training in mathematics. “People assume you have to have some special talent to do mathematics,” Sylvia has said. “They think you’re either born with it, or you’re not. But Rhonda and I keep saying, ‘You actually develop the ability to do mathematics. Don’t give up!’?”

“There have been so many times in my career when I wanted to pack it in, when I wanted to give up and do something easier,” Rhonda told me. “But there was always someone who, in one way or another, told me to keep going. I think everyone needs somebody like that. Don’t you?”



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I. There’s an expression in sports: “Race your strengths and train your weaknesses.” I agree with the wisdom of this adage, but I also think it’s important that people recognize that skills improve with practice.





Part III


GROWING GRIT FROM THE OUTSIDE IN





Chapter 10


PARENTING FOR GRIT





What can I do to encourage grit in the people I care for?

I’m asked this question at least once a day.

Sometimes it’s a coach who asks; sometimes it’s an entrepreneur or a CEO. Last week, it was a fourth-grade teacher, and the week before, a math professor at a community college. I’ve had army generals and navy admirals toss me this question, too, but most often it’s a mother or father who worries that their child isn’t close to realizing their potential.

All the people quizzing me are thinking as parents would, of course—even if they’re not parents. The word parenting derives from Latin and means “to bring forth.” You’re acting in a parentlike way if you’re asking for guidance on how to best bring forth interest, practice, purpose, and hope in the people you care for.



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When I turn the tables and ask people for their own intuitions on how to “parent for grit,” I get different answers.

Some believe grit is forged in the crucible of adversity. Others are quick to paraphrase Nietzsche: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”I Such invocations conjure an image of scowling mothers and fathers dispensing endless criticism on the sidelines of games that had better be victories, or chaining their children to the piano bench or violin stand, or grounding them for the sin of an A–.

This perspective assumes that offering loving support and demanding high standards are two ends of a continuum, with the authoritarian parents of the gritty far to the right of center.

Had I been around to seek opinions a century ago, such would have been the perspective of John Watson, then chair of psychology at Johns Hopkins University.

In his best-selling 1928 parenting guide, Psychological Care of Infant and Child, Watson holds forth on how to raise a child “who loses himself in work and play, who quickly learns to overcome the small difficulties in his environment . . . and who finally enters manhood so bulwarked with stable work and emotional habits that no adversity can quite overwhelm him.”

Here’s Watson’s advice: “Never hug and kiss them. Never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.” Watson further recommends letting children cope with problems on their own “almost from the moment of birth,” rotating different caregivers to prevent unhealthy attachment to any one adult, and otherwise avoiding the coddling affection that prevents a child from “conquering the world.”

Occasionally, of course, people take the opposite stance.

They’re convinced that perseverance and especially passion bloom when children are lavished with unconditional affection and support. These champions of kinder and gentler parenting advocate big hugs and long leashes and point out that children are by their nature challenge-seeking creatures whose innate desire for competence needs only our unconditional love and affection to reveal itself. Once unfettered by the demands of imperious parents, children will follow their own intrinsic interests, and disciplined practice and resilience in the face of setbacks will follow.

On the continuum between supportive and demanding parenting, proponents of this permissive “child-centered” approach fall to the left of center.