Building Grit In A Pampered Generation 

By: Sara Honikman

There’s a running theme in every generation regarding the expectations of child-rearing. Our parents’ generation operated on the premise that letting a child just “suck it up” and accept disappointment without complaint will make them tougher and grittier. And this applied to everything, all the time.

Maybe that’s why this generation has shifted the way they raise their children to the other extreme. This generation over-protects and coddles their children until we’re left with a group of fragile young people who lack grit. In fact, they are so fragile and lacking in resilience that it almost feels like a public health crisis.

Our children lack the ability to handle life. And with the growing competition among schools for the best students, the focus is shifting more toward academics and less on skills they really need, such as effective communication, conflict resolution, setting healthy boundaries, emotional regulation, problem-solving, and active listening, the skills they desperately need to navigate life. We need more practice and more opportunities to work with our children to help them handle life’s challenges more effectively, which includes an emphasis on these skills.

Professionally, I wear a few different hats. I’m a group fitness instructor in a few gyms on Long Island and I’m a Special Education Itinerant Teacher for early childhood. For the majority of my professional life, I’ve worked in schools both as a lead and support teacher, and have my finger on the pulse of how schools and children function today.

This summer, deciding to use my fitness and educational background, I took a job at a day camp where I hoped to use games as a medium to help children work through social dynamics. Basically, I created an environment that helped them flex their emotional-resilience muscles.

Here’s my takeaway: During the first week of camp, I saw that the vast majority of the children had minimal coping skills. We would be playing a game that immersed the entire bunk, such as a race, when suddenly four kids would declare that they didn’t want to play anymore because they were tired and hot. I was confused and honestly frustrated by the number of children who missed out on a quality, fun experience because they were feeling uncomfortable.

When I think back to my own childhood, races and competitions were our favorite pastimes at camp. It’s where we learned how to work under pressure and handle disappointment. I saw an opportunity this summer to focus on the emotional experience that shows up in a controlled yet stressful environment, and to use those opportunities to teach children how to show up when showing up is hard.

Every child reacts differently to stress. And every type of possible response showed up this summer. There were the kids who shut down under stress, kids who started yelling at everyone around them, kids who pulled back under pressure, and kids who declared, “I can’t do it,” or “I’m not good at this,” and simply folded before starting.

Here’s what’s fascinating about the human brain: it has a default response to stress and it can’t differentiate between different types of stress. So, a race can genuinely feel as scary as when a dog is chasing you or you endure a fire drill or a fight with a friend.

Here’s a little science background on this. Our human brain is comprised of many parts, and one of those parts is our reptilian brain, which is less sophisticated than our limbic system. This part of the brain reacts in predictable ways during stressful moments: our heart rate increases, we sweat, our pupils dilate, and our fight-or-flight response is activated.

This is why firefighters and soldiers are trained using simulators to create stressful situations so they can train their bodies to build muscle memory so they are prepared for real-life stress. They get this practice so when real-life stresses occur, their nervous system is prepared and does not shut down. This is the data I latched onto while creating the curriculum this summer.

I wasn’t just teaching sports and games: I was teaching kids real-life skills and how to move through stress. What occurs during the pressures of a race is similar to what happens during real-life stressful situations.

So, ask yourself. What shows up when you’re under stress? What is your default response whether you’re at work, on the road, at home, or simply dealing with the constant challenges of parenting? Do you fold, fawn, fret, or fight? Do you remember to leave no man behind, or is it every person for himself? Do you scream? Disassociate? Panic? And what about your successes in life? When you win, how do you respond? Do you allow yourself to relish your success or do you immediately look for flaws? Do you boast or do you celebrate in a dignified manner? When you were young, can you recall how you handled your wins? Did your satisfaction come from within, or did you need the other team to lose in order to feel victorious?

While reading this, are you surprised to see how many moving pieces there are in a simple relay race? It’s amazing how many life skills can be taught in a hands-on way using real experiences. During that race game, we didn’t just work through handling the stress and pressure of the competition; we also spent time learning how to lose. We learned how to make space for both the sting of loss while holding space for friends to celebrate their win.

Can you imagine if every child was given a curriculum that helped him learn how to be genuinely happy for others while honoring his own disappointment? Imagine how wonderful it would be to see how those benefits would have a positive impact on the quality of our relationships. This summer has been a massive highlight of my career. It has completely changed my view of how schools should design their social-emotional curriculums. I may not have the power to change this on a macro level, but you, as parents and educators, can create it in your own home and classroom.

Go out and buy some games. Find ones that have time constraints so they create an element of pressure. One of my absolute favorites is 5 Second Rule. Let’s bring back the good old days and ditch the screens for family night. Let’s recognize the value we gain from games: We learn how to lose with dignity and win with humility. We learn that the end result is not the full picture, that sometimes the middle of the road is the best part of the journey. We learn that we don’t always get to play with our people, but even when we’re playing against them, there’s a way to hold space for ourselves and our loved ones, even when it feels like a contradiction.

Games teach us that sometimes all we need during a hard moment is a big, deep breath and a pause. Games teach us that if we had fun, we won, and that the end result is not the be-all and end-all. We learn how to rise to the occasion even when it’s hard and even when we’re tired, scared, and hot.

Games teach us that we don’t always show up as the best version of ourselves, but quitting is never an option. We learn that being brave is not the absence of fear, but having fear and moving forward anyway. Who knew that running with a makeshift pool-noodle horse or ice-cream-cone ball could teach us all these critical life skills?

This generation may have a big challenge to face with the way the world is heading. But at least there’s still summer. So, let’s create a new movement. Let’s bring back old school, without the gaslighting and suppressed emotions that so many of us carry daily, which influence how we parent the next generation.

Let’s take the time to run, fall down, scrape our knees, and still summon the strength to rise up and train our own inner firefighter. Let’s train ourselves and our children that it’s okay to feel tired, hurt, and disappointed, but we can still pick ourselves up and keep going. We don’t dishonor ourselves when we fight through struggle. We honor every part of who we are, while still showing up as the greatest version of ourselves. This is how we develop grit. This is how we fight the power and threat of the crazy world we live in. This is how we build humans who can bend without breaking, and raise a generation strong enough to handle the heat and still keep running.