Is grit and resilience really the answer?

[Grittymadness]

The DC's school has been doing lots and lots of work on the importance of having emotional grit and resilience. Growth mindset and determination to achieve.

There seems such a focus on this in schools and I have a problem with it I'm struggling to articulate. It's like it's all down to the individual - if your not achieving or coping you just need to toughen up, work harder etc. (This is hard to process when say your child has learning difficulties, poor mental health etc).

Does anyone else agree, or am I just being overly sensitive and need a bit of resilience myself 😂

@Grittymadness your thoughts and description of what resilience coaching is very understandable but not quite right, which is why you are having a negative view of it.

To give a very simplified example, resilience and growth mindset in a school race would mean that fourth placed child would be pleased and give congratulations instead of feeling sad, they would reflect on whether they performed to the best of their ability and realise that this is always the highest achievement, they might think about whether or how they could improve in future, or whether they even want first place to be a goal. They wouldn’t think I may as will give up, there’s no point trying, first placed child had an unfair advantage etc etc

Agree completely. These things are a box ticking exercise for many schools, nothing more.

Also resilience and growth mindset coaching doesn’t mean all kids will become resilient and have a growth mindset. Nor does it mean they are deficient if they don’t. It’s about providing the tools that might be helpful and benefit them in childhood and adulthood.

Considering some of the shit I see on here I think it's a good thing schools are pushing resilience in children

We have adults (on here) who can't open a door, feel uncomfortable telling a visually impaired person they're wearing a blue top and have brown hair - this is shocking and something that needs to be worked on in childhood

It's like it's all down to the individual
What is all down to the individual is how you react to the things you can't control.

We all struggle with lack of control. It's frightening and uncomfortable. We indeed can't control all external stimuli, but what we can control is how we deal and cope with it. That's resilience and the best thing we can teach our children.

Focusing on what we can't control is just harbouring anxiety.

It's the mindfulness content that irritates me. DD comes home in tears whenever they do the 'what are your worries' because they've spent all day asking asking asking for her to be worried about things and suggesting things that might worry her (that hadn't entered her head beforehand!)

Some very good comments here.

'Resilient child' is what I'd wish for my child to be, more so than a 'happy child'.

Being taught at school? - yeah, good idea. But really taught, not just another thing to be observed and assessed on.

I think I know what you mean OP

There is a fine line between teaching resilience and growth mindset, and judging kids on how well they do at these things.

There ought to be more recognition that some kids find resilience and similar skills harder than others. Especially kids with SEN.

It doesn’t make you spoilt or a snowflake if you find it difficult to deal with setbacks, it just means you need more help with that skill. Just as there is (now) recognition that some kids find maths or spelling harder, this doesn’t make them stupid it just means they need more help.

I listened to the headmaster of a selective senior school yesterday saying they look for resilience and growth mindset at admissions stage. Because without those skills, kids won’t learn well, so they don’t want them. I felt annoyed - to me it is part of school’s role (and parents of course) to teach these things, rather than filtering out the kids who find it a bit harder.

It's probably already been mentioned, but "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff is the essential book on this stuff. It's a few years old now, and I recently heard GL saying that things have got a lot worse and that they were too optimistic in their conclusions in that book! But anyway, it's a great read and it really looks at the damage we're doing to children by 'protecting' them and 'keeping them safe'.

I remember going out once, 4 mums, all with boys and a few of them brought friends, they all ran off to climb a tree, one lad hung back, I asked him why, it wasn't a difficult tree to climb, they were all having fun, he said he couldn't "as he was a sensitive boy" Now I am sorry, there was no physical reason he couldn't climb that tree, he had just been told over and over again he was a sensitive boy!

It's all about balance. Kids need to be aware of mental health, and treat it as seriously as they would a physical issue (not bottling things up and allowing them to get worse if there really is a problem, but they also need some resilience. They can't just cry at the drop of a hat to get their own way.

Is anxiety and poor mental health the opposite of resilient though? I’m not sure it is. Many people keep going, even achieving well and still have anxiety attacks, depression etc.
I think we need to tell our children they are enough as they are. Treat other people the way you would want to be treated.and crack on. I know some children don’t get “treated well” modelled and that requires different help. But the amount of kids saying they are anxious with nothing tangible to be anxious about suggests it’s expectation rather than reality.

Coping strategies re resilience are mostly built on ‘deferred gratification’ a notion unfamiliar to most children I think - ditto ‘boredom’ it seems to be modern childhood built on instant gratification ☹️ And as for bloody John Hattie 😡 what a charlatan

@carefullycourageous

But all things are not equal, are they, so you're starting from a flawed premise.

I think they fundamentally are in 99.9% of cases.

Modern society rushes to make excuses and pathologise everything, but most of us have the same chances in terms of being given a shot at getting an education etc.

I remember in high school being amazed at how obviously disinterested some people were in learning. You could tell even then that they would likely be wasters all their lives (dont get me wrong, some people bloom later and in different ways).

I now have little kids at primary, and I can even seen future wasters - i.e people who will never apply themselves or try a leg - among their peers already.

These are the people who will go through life living off the state and whining about that Maggie Thatcher, Boris Johnston Liz Truss etc, as if the current PM has some personal vendetta to do them down at every turn.

I have always fundamentally disagreed with this. I was always told to 'toughen up' at school. But realistically, they were bullies. I shouldn't need to change my character because someone else can't help but be a cunt.

@vivainsomnia

What is all down to the individual is how you react to the things you can't control.

That is an excellent point.

Of course you need to change and adapt to the world. You need to be tough enough to stand up for yourself and your family. You need strength to create solid boundaries around the parts of your character/life that you don't want anyone to touch. And it's extremely narcissistic to think the whole world has to change to make you comfortable. So yeah, toughen up.

I think children, including mines, lost a bit of resilience during the pandemic as they werent having normal interactions with others. One of my 7yo (twins) was especially overly dramatic at the slightest injury. New teacher is keen on a bit of tough love stop wailing you're fine and it's really helping her to just take a deep breath and shake it off.

I agree.
One of my closest friends is also one of the warmest, most caring people I know.
At the same time she’s been showing amazing resilience after the recent separation from her husband, absolutely determined to build a nice life for herself and her child, with not much money to fall back on or any family close by.

Learning to cope is a good thing, and resilience will help your kids as they get older. There won’t always be someone to back them up or make a fair judgement.

However, apparently these things are better learned of the kids are supported in childhood - they have to know someone has their back as a child to learn to have their own back and be self reliant as adults apparently. So it’s a bit of both I’d say

Loads of responses - all really interesting to think about. I'm still on the fence..

DS2 who is very capable and able I think will benefit more from this kind of approach as he is naturally on the more sensitive side, prone to perfectionism etc. But ultimately because they are already secure, stable and able they are in a position to use this skill.

DS1 is totally different. What he needed was an ND diagnosis, proper mental health support and better educational support in the classroom - not being told to keep going, build resilience etc. He simply couldn't give any more, didn't have any more reserves and ended up having very poor mental health. He needed support and help that wasn't available due to resources. We finally now have his diagnosis, had our allocated 10 weeks of mental health support (that is all they can give him due to resources) and he's been signed up for a course to help build his resilience! I'm tying to keep and open mind about it 😀

I do think it’s a good thing overall

My dc speak with an awareness that I’m impressed by

I take the point from ND dc perspective, it’s a valid one which could be explored in individual ways, but I’m not sure when I was a child before this idea started ND dc were better off: I think it would have been harder back then

I think it IS the answer however I also think we put a lot of pressure on the individual rather than on needing a supportive community. We've evolved to need this.

Also it's easy to blame individuals for not being resilient rather than looking at global issues that are naturally troubling...climate change, mass upheaval, rising cost of living etc.

Grit and resilience help, but we should be addressing some of the problems we're heaping on the young.

If they need an ND diagnosis then definitely not enough to just say “learn resilience” l. Totally different situation.

Resilience is good! It doesn't have to mean that if your whole family dies in a car crash, you still bravely go in to school the next day with a smile on your face and struggle on through your mock maths GCSE paper, because you have Grit. That would be inappropriate and frankly bonkers. But so many children won't even have a go at a task, or try once and if they can't do it perfectly straight away they give up, or if they face a small obstacle their entire morning is ruined. Practicing resilience, and learning that you sometimes have to put a bit of effort in to get past a hurdle, or that if something isn't perfect but you tried and improved on last time that's still progress, is a valuable life skill.