Fathers and mothers, and also teachers, we want the kids to strive to achieve their goals, to learn, to improve, to grow. However, many ominous voices denounce that the culture of effort, that our children want everything easy and do not want to make an effort. Regardless of whether this is true, how can we promote a culture of effort at home? We offer you the keys.
Why is it important that we strive
Understanding that to achieve something we must work hard and not give up the first time helps us to persist, to believe that we can achieve it, to try to improve ourselves, to learn, to improve. If we don’t understand how necessary effort is, we won’t learn much., we will not move much from the place where we are, we will not contribute anything very significant and we will live halfway and, probably, frustrated for having achieved little. Surely this is not what we want for our children.
In addition, the pedagogue and philosopher Gregorio Luri told us that in the PISA tests the results of the Spanish students are at the level of the best at the beginning of the test and worsen as the test progresses. That is why Luri believes that “Perseverance is the decisive factor for school success”. And perseverance is nothing more than the effort maintained over time.
success takes effort
Fernando Botella, an expert in talent and leadership, emphasizes that an athlete prepares for 4 years for 90 seconds of competition. Or that Pablo Picasso came to say “painting like children took me all my life”. They are stories that demonstrate the importance of sustained effort, perseverance, to achieve our goals and grow. Fernando Botella considers that it is important to “explain to our children that success comes after a lot of work”.
How do we encourage effort and attention?
Luri believes that in the information society in which we live, attention and effort are key to not getting lost in the tangle of data or entertainment that we have at our fingertips, attending to the available information and selecting the most relevant.
For Luri, in addition to inviting reading, something very important that parents and teachers can do to promote a culture of effort is to be an example, as he explains in this video:
In fact, a study conducted by psychologist Carol Dweck demonstrates the positive effects of praising effort and the negative effects of praising achievement or intelligence. Of the 400 students who took a test, 200 were praised for being smart and another 200 for effort. They were then given a choice between an easier test and a more difficult one. 67% of the kids praised for their intelligence chose the easier option, because they didn’t want to jeopardize their smart rating, so they didn’t take the risk. However, 92% of those who were praised for their effort chose the challenging option.
More information (Car)
Keys to encourage effort
In short, how can we foster a culture of effort in our children?
one.- Be an example of effort. Telling our children what some of our achievements have cost us, showing that we do not give up even if it costs us, is a good idea if we want our children to understand why it is important to make an effort.
2.- Do not overprotect them. If our children can achieve something for themselves, even if it costs them more, it is preferable to encourage them to do so, because their personal satisfaction will be greater. Let’s not forget that considering ourselves capable is fundamental to having a good self-esteem.
3.- Talk about the effort: Stories of athletes or artists, like the ones we have told here, can help us understand the importance of effort, of working to achieve a goal.
4.- Praise the effort and not so much how smart or good they are: It is very tempting to tell our children that they are the most handsome, the smartest, the best at everything… But in this way we do not encourage them to make an effort, but rather to be afraid of losing that great status. If we value their effort, their interest, if we talk to them about how good they feel when they make an effort, whether they have achieved the result or not, we will be encouraging them to appreciate making an effort.