Academic Achievement vs. Resilience

"Resilience helps kids more than high SATs do," writes Belinda Luscombe in Time (September 10, 2012). Getting good grades has been the mantra of anxious parents..."but now there's a trickle of thought that says academic ability may not be all it's cracked up to be. Rather than so much focus on cognitive skills, some heretics suggest, a little more grit is what kids really need."

Luscombe refers to a new book by Paul Tough, How Children Succeed, in which he observes that ... "while IQ is stubborn to change after age 8, the ability to persist, focus, and adapt is more malleable, even into early adulthood.  And while IQ may be what gets kids into college, they need a whole other set of skills to graduate."

And while Tough focuses his attention on low-income families, Madeline Levine, looks at wealthy families in her book, Teach Your Children Well, and reaches a similar conclusion. Her tips to restore family sanity: "less emphasis on grades, more on values, less homework, more sleep, less fretting by parents, more encouraging."

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