We usually complain bitterly that in our society, in which we can get things at the click of a button, it seems that the culture of effort has been abandoned and that effort is frowned upon. From the hand of the experts we address the keys to encourage perseverance in the education of our children.
Why is it important to encourage perseverance?
Fernando Botella, talent expert, recalls that the greatest challenge in raising children is “instilling in them perseverance, which is sustained effort over time.” Without a doubt, if we do not make an effort, we will not achieve any achievement. If our children give up, if they don’t want to keep trying a little longer, if they get frustrated when they try something and it doesn’t work out at first and, because of that frustration, they don’t want to keep trying, they won’t get very far, right?
Encouraging perseverance, the vaccine against school failure
Gregorio Luri told us that in the evaluation of the PISA Report of 15-year-old children, “Spanish children and those from Hong Kong are not very far apart at the beginning of the test. But as time goes by our children sink & rdquor ;. For this reason, the philosopher and pedagogue wonders if “our not excessively striking results are due to the inability to maintain attention for a continuous time & rdquor ;. Therefore, he concludes that “Perseverance is the decisive factor of school success.”
Foster perseverance or find a passion?
Eva Bach tells us in her book Educate to love life that effort for effort “is one of the most insipid and disheartening actions there is & rdquor ;. Therefore, Eva believes that “an effort is easier to sustain when it is moved by the love of what we do, to why we do it and/or to those with whom we do it. Our children will be able to make an effort if we help them find a passion, a dream, a “what for” inspiring.
Carles Capdevila was very supportive of this idea. In this great video he tells us that some friends were very worried because his son wanted to be a magician. But a year later, the boy had learned English, because the magic tutorials are in English, to speak in public for shows, to make crafts… And it is that illusion moves mountains and that is why, in this connected world, our mission is simple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaCxQSqGngo
If you want to encourage perseverance, don’t praise their intelligence so much.
We have already discussed an interesting experiment carried out by Carol Dweck which shows that when we praise our children’s intelligence we encourage the fear of being wrong and losing that label. However, if we congratulate them for their effort, we encourage them to want to improve themselves, even at the risk of making mistakes.
If you are one of those who cannot resist saying how smart and handsome your son is (which he is, we know), Gregorio Luri has a message for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgS12V5-4k
Keys to encourage perseverance
In summary, if you want to encourage perseverance in your children, here are the keys:
- Encourage them to explore to find what they are passionate aboutbecause of illusion one lives and one learns, as Carles Capdevila said.
- Give more praise to the process and effort than the result.
- reflect on mistakes as opportunities to learn.
- Understand frustration as an ally to look for plan Bnot to abandon
- Being an example of perseverance: show that we do not achieve everything at first and we make mistakes, but we do not give up.