Character strengths

Many of the young adults I work with want to believe that IQ is what will determine their success later in life. Those of us who have been working for years with high-risk students know that IQ is only a very small part of the equation. Other factors loom much larger and fortunately those can be cultivated and strengthened.

Almost to a one, my young adults fail to appreciate the importance of grit until they leave home for college or the workforce. I think this is because throughout primary and secondary education, their lives are structured. Goals tend to be short-term and prescribed by teachers, parents, and coaches. Many high risk teenagers have developed the capacity to endure school rather than cultivate the grit required to pursue learning or develop expertise. After high school, the young adult has to set his or her own goals and learn to pursue them on a day-to-day basis. Vulnerable young adults need more time and mentorship after high school to learn what grit is and why they should bother to develop it.

I was recently looking back at the New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough, “What if the Secret to Success is Failure?” (9/14/11), because it emphasizes the importance of persistence in the face of setbacks and the importance of the setbacks themselves because these are what develop the character strengths from which real success is derived.

The article examines research that stems out of Seligman’s work on positive psychology. A former graduate student of Dr. Seligman’s, now an assistant professor at Penn, Angela Duckworth, Ph.D. developed a 12-item grit questionnaire. She found that grit was a stronger predictor of which cadets would continue at West Point after the summer sorting hat of Beast Barracks than West Points’ full battery of tests. What stands out for me today is how important grit is for the high risk young people that I see. Whether the diagnosis is ADHD, LD, bipolar, anxiety—these young people will need to work hard, persist in their efforts, pick themselves up when they fail, and keep going in order to reach their goals.

Can we help these young people to develop grit? I think that we can and we must. Check out  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort  www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu. Also, Paul Tough’s new book, The Success Equation, will be out in 2012.