Are you trying to help parents help children get ready for school success?  According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, traits such as self-control and grit can predict school success as well as IQ.  On September 27 the MacArthur Foundation released the names of the twenty-four 2013 recipients of its famous MacArthur Fellowships, sometimes called the Genius Grants.  These grants are given to honor and support individuals’ exceptional creativity in past work and the promise of more in the future.  Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania is among this year’s 24 creative individuals.  Her research demonstrates that character traits are equally good indicators of a child’s future academic success as intelligence and standardized achievement tests.

Duckworth and her research group have focused their research on two character traits, grit and self-control, as indicators of likely success in school, as well as adult earning power (see their website for more). Grit refers to the ability to pursue and stick to long-term goals.  Self-control is the capacity to resist distractions and manage one’s attention, behavior and emotions.

We have written about Dr. Duckworth’s work earlier, because her research was highlighted in Paul Tough’s popular book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character (see the series of posts on the book and Duckworth’s work, 1,2,3,4).  

Duckworth’s well deserved award reminds us that the character traits she studies are all traits that can be developed. Although Duckworth and her colleagues have not yet reported findings on the effectiveness of particular parenting strategies that foster these traits, they have certainly indicated that both grit and self-control can be taught, and that a child can be helped to strengthen these qualities of character.  Though her work focuses mainly on school-aged children, those who work with younger children know that parenting can play a big role in strengthening these traits that figure so prominently in future success.  Our earlier posts explored how parents can support the development of character traits thought to be associated with success. 

Parenting Assessment and Self-Control

Parenting Assessment can play an important role in supporting parents to develop their children’s self-control and grit.  One of the parenting behaviors assessed on the Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale (KIPS) is Limits and Consequences.  Effective limits help children learn self-control, especially when parents explain the reasons for the limits to children and help them understand the do’s as well as the don’ts.  For example, “If you throw the ball in the house, it may hit your baby brother and hurt him.  You can roll the ball, but if you keep throwing it, the ball will have to go back in the closet.”  Assessing how well the parents you’re working with establish effective limits and appropriate consequences in their interactions with their children can guide you in helping parents develop self-control in their children.  Another KIPS item, Supporting Emotions, guides you to recognize how well the parents are supporting children to understand, express and manage their emotions.  Much of self-control depends upon managing our emotions so we consider the situation instead of acting impulsively.  

Parenting Assessment and Grit

Supporting a child in striving and overcoming challenges develops their reserve of inner grit.  KIPS assesses a parent’s Reasonable Expectations.  In this item we assess the match of the parent’s expectations with the child’s abilities, then how consistently she/he stretches the child a little bit to learn new things and overcome challenges.  Coming from yet another angle, KIPS guides you in assessing how well parents Adapt Strategies when interacting with their child.  Part of grit is maintaining interest in a subject.  When parents adapt strategies it helps the child learn to sustain interest in an activity for more than a fleeting moment.  This develops the ability to stick with the task at hand.

Parenting Assessment and Service Planning

These few examples show how assessing parenting can guide you in supporting parents. Without a validated observational assessment, family service providers too often rely upon their clinical impressions alone.  A validated observational parenting assessment can help focus your attention, expand the behaviors you recognize, and organize your efforts with each parent. Placing a validated parenting assessment tool in the hands of trained family service providers allows for the current status of parents to be accurately assessed, and with repeated assessments, progress can be documented and celebrated.  By measuring observable indicators of these skills on a graduated scale, and preserving these scores for future comparison, an accurate picture of an individual parent’s progress over time can be documented.  Combining the information gleaned from a parenting assessment and awareness of the value of developing grit and self-control, you can guide parents to develop their children’s traits that will lead to school success.

Congratulations to Dr. Angela Duckworth for her creative research showing the importance of character in school success and how it can be taught.  Her MacArthur Fellowship is well deserved!