Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Grit, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passion, Perseverance, and Success
Developing Grit
Psychology and Human Development
Grit and Society
Summary
Analysis
People constantly ask Duckworth how they can help others develop grit. Most are parents, but some are also teachers, managers, and even military generals. Many of these people assume that young people should face as much adversity as possible to become gritty. They sound like the early-20th-century psychologist John Watson, who thought that parents shouldn’t show their children affection or help them with the challenges they face. Meanwhile, other parents think that the key to raising gritty children is “unconditional affection and support.”
The last four chapters have focused on how people can build grit for themselves, but the next three explain how they can help others—especially young people—do the same. The debate over parenting that Duckworth describes here reflects how controversial a topic this is; and yet both theories are partially consistent with the evidence that Duckworth has presented so far. But, as she noted in the previous chapter, the kind of challenges that people face is much more important than the number of challenges they encounter. This is why neither strict, authoritarian parenting nor completely lax, permissive parenting is the obvious solution to raising gritty kids.
Themes
Duckworth asks whether strict parents or supportive ones end up helping children develop grit. She offers two contrasting examples, starting with the star quarterback Steve Young, who attributes his success to his strict Mormon parents. In college, Young wanted to quit football, but his father refused to let him move home. Instead, he practiced hard and eventually became the country’s best college quarterback. Young’s parents wanted to raise persistent and disciplined kids, but they were warm and supportive, not authoritarian. Young’s father—who, fittingly, goes by the nickname “Grit”—did everything he could to spend weekends with his children. He also helped Young work through his childhood anxiety attacks. Young recognizes that his parents’ tough love was actually selfless: they wanted him to have more opportunities than they did.
Duckworth notes that Young’s parents might seem overly strict and authoritarian at first. Upon further examination, though, they were clearly fair, loving, and deeply committed to their children. The clearest evidence of this is that Young fully appreciates their parenting style in retrospect. Thus, Young’s father didn’t ban Young from returning home out of cruelty, but rather because he believed it was best for his son. This was really just Young’s parents’ way of expressing their high expectations and belief in their children’s ability to succeed. In short, Young’s story shows that parents can raise gritty children through a combination of high expectations and support.
Themes
While unlike Steve Young in many ways, the British comedian Francesca Martinez also has lots of grit. She has built a successful career despite her cerebral palsy, which makes performing onstage difficult. She blames her loving, supportive family for her success. When she wanted to drop out of high school to pursue comedy, her parents encouraged her. Martinez’s parents explained their philosophy to Duckworth: they believe that nurturing, supportive parenting naturally helps children find their calling and thrive. But they also refused to spoil their children. Instead, they taught their children to finish what they start and live according to moral principles.
Martinez’s parents tended toward the opposite side of the spectrum from Young’s. They gave her more autonomy and fewer rules than Young received. But they still expected her to behave ethically and work hard towards her goals. Although they expressed it very differently, then, both Young’s and Martinez’s parents were loving and supportive in ways that helped their children succeed.
Themes
Young and Martinez’s parents were very different, but they fit into the pattern that Duckworth has seen produce high-grit kids time and time again. While psychologists still need to research this topic further, Duckworth offers some clear insights. First, parents don’t have to choose between being supportive or demanding—all around the world, for decades, study after study has found that the most successful parents do both. Duckworth calls these parents “wise parents.” She gives her readers a checklist for determining if they are appropriately demanding and supportive (or warm and respectful).
Duckworth carefully notes the limits of psychologists’ current knowledge in order to emphasize that the claims she does make are clearly supported by reliable evidence. While Young’s parents were demanding, they were also supported, and while Martinez’s parents were supportive, they were also demanding. The parents’ emotional tone didn’t actually matter very much—Young’s strict, clean-cut parents managed to support Young and help him grow just as much as Martinez’s lax, unconventional parents did for her.
Themes
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Wise parents raise gritty children because they serve as effective role models for grit. Of course, all children imitate the adults around them—especially their parents. In a famous Stanford study, young children watched an adult either play with toys or attack an inflatable doll, then did the exact same thing as the adult they saw. But as children grow up, they stop imitating adults and start emulating them: they decide whether they want to be the same kind of people as the adults around them. When he studied successful performers, Benjamin Bloom found that most had wise parents who modeled a strong work ethic and passed on their own interests. This suggests that wise parents also have to model passion and perseverance in order to raise gritty children.
Demanding but supportive parents automatically model grit for their children because the hallmark of grit is adopting a demanding but supportive attitude towards oneself. For instance, in deliberate practice, people set very high goals for themselves and then work gradually towards those goals without judging themselves when they fall short. Duckworth’s distinction between imitation and emulation essentially means that, while young people might initially absorb whatever surrounds them, at a certain point, they have to actively choose what kind of people to become based on the models available to them. And this process of emulation is what truly shapes their personality in the long run.
Themes
Other adults besides parents can also model grit for children. For instance, Spotify founder Tobi Lütke dropped out of high school and took an apprenticeship with an engineering company. A programmer at the company taught Lütke how to write code, gave him consistent feedback, and helped him face challenges like presenting his work to General Motors.
While parents generally influence their children’s development more than anyone else, this doesn’t always have to be the case—rather, children can also learn key lessons about grit from other influential adults around them. Of course, this also means that adults should think about whether they model grit for the young people in their lives, even if they don’t have kids. After all, Tobi Lütke benefited profoundly from his supportive relationship with the programmer at his company, who had no familial obligation to help him.
Themes
Similarly, wise teachers can influence young people just like wise parents. Harvard economist Ron Ferguson has found that students perform better, participate more in class, and feel happier when their teachers are both supportive and demanding. Similarly, David Yeager and Geoff Cohen ran an experiment by returning some students’ graded essays with a post-it note that said, “I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” Eighty percent of the students who received this feedback revised and resubmitted their essays, compared to forty percent in the control group. They also made much more substantial edits.
Besides parents, teachers are usually the most important influences and role models in young people’s lives. This means that they have a unique opportunity to help young people build grit—and, clearly, Duckworth hopes that they will apply psychology research in order to do so. Yeager and Cohen’s experiment shows how straightforward this can be: even modest interventions that communicate a supportive but demanding attitude can help young people adopt a growth mindset and a more expansive view of their own potential.
Themes
Not every high-grit person has parents who are able to be present and supportive, but they all have some mentor at a crucial point in their life. For instance, Cody Coleman was born to an incarcerated mother and raised by his impoverished, aging grandmother. He wasn’t a great student at the underperforming school he attended, and he assumed he couldn’t get into an elite college. But his older brother told him that he might as well try. Cody ended up earning perfect grades in high school and getting into MIT. His math teacher supported and challenged him through high school, as did his professors and peers once he reached MIT. He graduated with honors, and now he’s starting a PhD at Stanford. His experience shows how any adult can change young people’s lives by understanding and supporting them.
Coleman’s story shows how small encounters with supportive-but-demanding role models can have ripple effects across young people’s lives. A single conversation with his brother and a few key interactions with teachers and professors totally changed the course of his life. Specifically, these interventions taught Coleman to believe in his own potential, and this helped him develop the grit that got him all the way through college and into his PhD program. Duckworth’s message to her readers is clear: people shouldn’t underestimate their power to improve the world by spreading the values, perspectives, and practices that lead to grit. While the majority of grit depends on non-genetic factors, not all of these factors are fully within people’s control—instead, many of them depend on other people, like the adults who influenced Coleman.
Themes
