How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

“There is something undeniably compelling about the cognitive hypothesis. The world it describes is so neat, so reassuringly linear, such a clear case of inputs here leading to outputs there.”

Tough critiques the cognitive hypothesis, which is appealing because it portrays a nuance-free relationship between educational efforts and outcomes. The terms “undeniably compelling” and “reassuringly linear” make it clear that this comforting but oversimplified view of how success is achieved is a reductionist approach that should be viewed with skepticism. Tough implies that this model, while attractive for its clarity, fails to capture the complexities of human development. This passage serves as a prelude to the book's argument that character traits like grit and resilience are crucial, yet underappreciated, components of children’s success.

“The school had stood for more than eighty years in the heart of Roseland, on Chicago’s South Side, a once-prosperous area that is now one of the worst-off neighborhoods in the city by just about every measure you can find—poverty rate, unemployment rate, crime rate, or even just the barren, empty feel of the streets.”

Tough paints a vivid picture of Fenger High School, emblematic of the socioeconomic decline of Chicago’s South Side. By listing the metrics of poverty, unemployment, and crime, and adding a sensory detail (“the empty feel of the streets”) that conveys the desolation of his setting, Tough methodically underscores the stark challenges faced by the community and, by extension, the students of Fenger High School. 

“When you hear stories about schools like Fenger, they are often told in the language of neglect: a school on the margins, students who have been forgotten and ignored by the bureaucrats downtown and in Washington. But the strange thing about Fenger High School is that it hasn’t been ignored. Not at all.”

Tough challenges the common narrative of neglect surrounding schools like Fenger, which are often portrayed as forgotten by educational authorities. He introduces Fenger as a counterexample, noting that, contrary to expectations, the school has received significant attention. This juxtaposition forces the reader to reconsider preconceived notions about schools in impoverished areas, implying that attention or funding alone may not address the underlying issues these institutions face. Tough’s assertion that Fenger has not been ignored invites questions about the nature of the attention it has received and whether that attention has been effective in supporting the school’s needs.

“She sometimes felt less like a primary-care pediatrician and more like a battlefield surgeon, patching up her patients and sending them back to war.”

Tough uses a metaphor to describe the challenging work of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as a pediatrician in a high-adversity community. By comparing her role to that of a “battlefield surgeon,” Tough highlights the relentless, acute nature of the challenges faced by her young patients. This metaphor emphasizes the severity of the socioeconomic and health-related issues the children encounter and underscores the cyclical, almost Sisyphean task of addressing symptoms without being able to remove the cause—sending them “back to war.” This comparison frames Burke Harris’s efforts as both heroic and tragically limited by the circumstances of her patients’ lives.

“Gradually, Burke Harris became convinced of what had at first seemed a radical idea: that in neighborhoods like Bayview–Hunters Point and Roseland, many of the problems we generally think of as social issues—the province of economists and sociologists—are actually best analyzed and addressed on the molecular level, down deep in the realm of human biology.”

Tough captures a pivotal shift in Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s perspective on addressing the profound challenges faced by children in impoverished neighborhoods. She went from considering these problems as solely social to recognizing them as deeply biological—a radical departure from conventional approaches. Words like “gradually” and “convinced” suggest a thoughtful, evolving process, highlighting the complexity of this idea. By stating that issues traditionally analyzed by economists and sociologists are “actually best analyzed and addressed on the molecular level,” Tough underscores a new approach to understanding and mitigating the impacts of adversity on children.

“When the alarm bell rings, the firefighters don’t take the time to analyze exactly what the problem is and figure out which truck might be most appropriate. Instead, all the trucks rush off to the fire together at top speed, sirens blaring. Like the HPA axis, they simply respond quickly with every tool they might need. This may be the right strategy for saving lives in fires, but it can also result in a dozen trucks pulling up to put out a single smoldering trash can—or worse, responding to a false alarm.”

Tough compares the HPA axis, a central part of the body’s stress response system, to a “superdeluxe firehouse,” in an expanded analogy. By envisioning the HPA axis as firefighters who deploy all available resources at the slightest hint of danger, Tough illustrates the system’s lack of discrimination in responding to threats, whether they are minor or severe. While such an all-encompassing response may be beneficial in acute, life-threatening situations, it can lead to inefficiencies and unnecessary stress in the face of minor challenges or false alarms.

“High-quality mothering, in other words, can act as a powerful buffer against the damage that adversity inflicts on a child’s stress-response system, much as the dams’ licking and grooming seemed to protect their pups.”

Tough draws a parallel between the nurturing behaviors observed in animal studies—specifically, the licking and grooming of rat pups by their mothers—and the principles of attachment theory in human parenting. By likening “High-quality mothering” to these critical animal behaviors, Tough underscores the significance of early, nurturing interactions in buffering children against the detrimental effects of stress and adversity. This comparison serves to illuminate the biological and psychological mechanisms that underpin the development of a child’s stress-response system, highlighting the protective power of maternal care.

“Like so many students in that class, Vance was a math star in middle school, acing the citywide test, passing the ninth-grade state math course when he was still in eighth grade. But when he got to high school, he told me, away from KIPP’s blast furnace of ambition, he lost his intensity […] The way Vance sees it today, KIPP set him up for high school very well academically, but it didn’t prepare him emotionally or psychologically.”

Tough’s metaphor—the “blast furnace of ambition”—conveys the intense, driven atmosphere of KIPP, juxtaposing it with Vance’s previous school setting. This quote illustrates the gap often found in educational systems that prioritize academic achievement without equally fostering the emotional and psychological skills students need to navigate different environments successfully. Tough uses Vance’s story to shed light on the critical role that noncognitive skills play in sustaining academic success and personal growth beyond the structured, supportive settings of exceptional schools like KIPP.

“Most of us are familiar with the experience of possessing motivation but lacking volition: You can be extremely motivated to lose weight, for example, but unless you have the volition—the willpower, the self-control—to put down the cherry Danish and pick up the free weights, you’re not going to succeed.”

Tough clarifies the distinction between motivation and volition, drawing on Angela Duckworth’s research to highlight a crucial aspect of achieving success. Using the relatable challenge of weight loss, he illustrates how a strong desire to achieve a goal (motivation) is insufficient without the willpower and self-control (volition) to make decisions that align with that goal. This distinction underlines the book’s broader theme that noncognitive skills like self-discipline and perseverance are vital for turning aspirations into accomplishments.

“Character, as far as I could tell, was defined at Riverdale mostly in terms of helping other people—or at least not hurting their feelings. I heard much less talk about how possessing character strengths might help a person lead a more successful life. Yet Randolph told me that he had concerns about a character program that didn’t go beyond those kinds of nice-guy values.”

Dominic Randolph, the headmaster of the affluent private school Riverdale, expresses concerns about the limitations of a character education that focuses solely on “nice-guy values,” suggesting a desire for a more comprehensive approach that also addresses personal growth and achievement. This reflection calls for a broader understanding of character, one that encompasses resilience, grit, and self-discipline—traits that Tough argues are essential for navigating life’s challenges and achieving personal goals.

“It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we know—on some level, at least—that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can.”

Tough delves into the paradoxical nature of contemporary parenting, capturing the conflicting desires to both shield children from harm and to allow them the growth that comes from facing adversity. By using the inclusive pronoun “we,” Tough positions himself alongside other parents, acknowledging a collective struggle that resonates on a personal level. This wording humanizes the author, making his insights more relatable, and universalizes the dilemma, a common thread among all parents regardless of their background.

“Although they would almost certainly not express it this way, wealthy parents choose a school like Riverdale for their children, at least in part, as a risk-management strategy.”

Tough offers a candid perspective on the motivations behind affluent parents’ choice of elite schools like Riverdale. This characterization suggests that beyond the pursuit of academic excellence, parents are also seeking to mitigate potential challenges and obstacles that could hinder their children’s future success and social standing. The phrase “risk-management strategy” implies a calculated effort to ensure safety, stability, and advantage in a competitive world, underscoring the protective instincts of parents coupled with their aspirations for their offspring. Tough’s analysis subtly critiques this approach, suggesting that there is an unspoken understanding among affluent families about the benefits conferred by schools like Riverdale, which extend beyond education to include networking, prestige, and a safeguard against the unpredictability of life’s circumstances.

“Here’s one way of looking at character: It can function as a substitute for the social safety net that students at Riverdale enjoy—the support from their families and schools and culture that protects them from the consequences of occasional detours and mistakes and bad decisions. If you don’t have that kind of safety net—and children in low-income families almost by definition do not—you need to compensate in another way. To succeed, you need more grit, more social intelligence, more self-control than wealthier kids.”

Tough presents character not merely as an innate or moral attribute but as a practical necessity for navigating life without the advantages of a privileged background. He contrasts the inherent social safety net enjoyed by students at Riverdale—a prestigious school attended by children from affluent families—with the stark realities faced by children from low-income families who lack such protective buffers. Tough suggests that for these less privileged children, character strengths such as grit, social intelligence, and self-control become critical compensatory tools, enabling them to manage and overcome the challenges that come with a lack of external support. This perspective shifts the discourse on character from an ethical dimension to a functional one, highlighting the role of noncognitive skills in achieving success amid adversity.

“Spiegel often conveys specific chess knowledge: how to spot the difference between the exchange Slav opening and the semi-Slav; how to weigh the comparative value of your light-square bishop and your dark-square bishop. But most of the time, it struck me whenever I watched her at work, what she was really doing was far simpler, and also far more complicated: she was teaching her students a new way to think.”

This observation highlights the transformative power of education when it focuses not just on content-based knowledge but also on developing critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and cognitive flexibility. Tough’s reflection on watching Spiegel work underscores the nuanced balance between teaching specific skills and fostering a broader intellectual growth. This approach, Tough suggests, equips students to excel in chess, and also to navigate life’s challenges more broadly with strategic insight and adaptability.

“To me, anyway, her system seemed inextricably linked to the research neuroscientists have been doing on executive functions—those higher-order mental capacities that some scientists compare to an air traffic control center for the brain.”

Tough suggests that Spiegel’s approach, though seemingly focused on the specifics of chess, fundamentally aligns with cultivating students’ executive functions—skills critical for managing and prioritizing multiple streams of information, making decisions, and planning strategically. This comparison elevates the significance of Spiegel’s teachings beyond the chessboard, positioning her work within the context of cognitive science and underscoring the practical application of these abstract theories to real-world educational settings. Tough’s analogy to an air traffic control center illustrates the complexity and importance of executive functions, emphasizing their role in navigating the myriad challenges and decisions individuals face daily.

“Two of the most important executive functions are cognitive flexibility and cognitive self-control. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to see alternative solutions to problems, to think outside the box, to negotiate unfamiliar situations. Cognitive self-control is the ability to inhibit an instinctive or habitual response and substitute a more effective, less obvious one. Both skills are central to the training Spiegel gives to her students.”

Elizabeth Spiegel’s teaching approach illustrates how executive functions are not just theoretical constructs but can be actively cultivated in educational settings. Spiegel’s training methods make her an exemplar of how educators can nurture these critical executive functions, emphasizing the broader theme of the book that success is deeply intertwined with noncognitive abilities. Tough’s discussion of these executive functions in the context of chess training implicitly argues for the importance of developing these skills from a young age, suggesting that such training equips students with the tools necessary for complex decision-making and resilience in the face of adversity.

“Why are so many American students dropping out of college just as a college degree has become so valuable and just as young people in the rest of the world have begun to graduate in such remarkable numbers?”

Tough’s rhetorical question invites readers to consider the multifaceted barriers to college completion in the US, contrasting it with international trends where higher education achievement is on the rise. This question sets the stage for exploring the underlying factors contributing to this educational crisis, suggesting that the answers may lie beyond academic preparedness and encompass broader social, economic, and institutional challenges. Tough uses this question to delve into themes of access, inequality, and the changing landscape of educational attainment, framing it as a critical issue that demands examination and action.

“Whether or not a student is able to graduate from a decent American college doesn’t necessarily have all that much to do with how smart he or she is. It has to do, instead, with that same list of character strengths that produce high GPAs in middle school and high school.”

Tough challenges the conventional belief that intelligence is the primary determinant of college graduation, shifting the focus toward character strengths. By stating that the ability to graduate from a decent American college is less about intellect and more about qualities like perseverance, self-control, and resilience, Tough underscores the importance of noncognitive skills in academic success. This assertion invites a reevaluation of educational priorities, suggesting that fostering these character strengths from a young age is essential for preparing students for success beyond the classroom.

“Nelson knew when he started that he couldn’t remake the entire high-school experience for his students. But he thought that perhaps he didn’t need to. By helping students develop the specific nonacademic skills that would lead most directly to college success, he believed he could compensate, relatively quickly, for the serious gap in academic ability that separated the average senior at a Chicago public high school from the average American college freshman.”

Tough introduces Jeff Nelson’s pragmatic approach to enhancing educational outcomes through the OneGoal program. By concentrating on specific noncognitive skills, Nelson aimed to quickly and effectively prepare students for the challenges of higher education, underscoring the potential of targeted interventions to make a significant impact on students’ futures. Tough uses Nelson’s story to highlight the transformative power of noncognitive skills, reinforcing the book’s argument that these attributes can play a critical role in overcoming educational disparities and achieving long-term success.

“Even in high school, while I was being such a responsible student, I had felt grave doubts about my relationship with formal education. I had a rebellious streak—I was a teenage Kerouac reader—and like millions of high-school rebels before me, I was convinced that what I was learning in the classroom didn’t really matter, man.”

In this reflective passage, Tough shares his personal ambivalence toward education. His identification as a “teenage Kerouac reader” paints him as a part of a questioning youth culture that often finds itself at odds with traditional academic structures. Tough’s use of casual, colloquial language (“didn’t really matter, man”) encapsulates the youthful rebellion and search for meaning outside the confines of structured learning. This personal anecdote serves to humanize Tough, making his exploration of educational success in How Children Succeed more relatable by acknowledging his own doubts.

“I spent a lot of time, in fact, mulling over exactly what it might mean to be a high-licking-and-grooming human parent. Those high-LG dams, I realized, were not helicopter parents. They didn’t hover anxiously. They weren’t constantly licking and grooming their pups. They did their LG-ing mostly in one very specific situation: when their pups were stressed out.”

Tough notes that the key to high-LG behavior is its targeted application—providing support and comfort primarily in moments of stress, rather than constant, anxious oversight. This reflection leads Tough to consider the implications of such behavior for human parenting, suggesting that the most beneficial support comes not from shielding children from every potential hardship but from offering targeted reassurance and guidance when they face challenges. Through this comparison, Tough advocates for a balanced approach to parenting that fosters resilience and independence in children by equipping them to manage stress effectively, rather than attempting to eliminate all sources of potential discomfort from their lives.

“There are fewer entrepreneurs graduating from our best colleges these days; fewer iconoclasts; fewer artists; fewer everything, in fact, except investment bankers and management consultants. Recently, the New York Times reported that 36 percent of new Princeton graduates in 2010 took jobs in the finance industry, and another 26 percent took jobs in a category that Princeton labels services, which features, prominently, management consulting.”

Tough highlights a concerning trend in the career paths chosen by graduates from top American colleges, noting a significant decline in the number of students pursuing entrepreneurial or creative careers. This observation raises questions about students’ aversion to failure and risk. By pointing out the overwhelming preference for jobs in finance and consulting, Tough implies that this shift in the professional landscape may reflect broader economic incentives, cultural priorities, or educational influences—a narrowing of ambition and diversity in professional pursuits among graduates of prestigious institutions, potentially at the expense of innovation and artistic drive.

“But while Americans remain as committed as ever to helping their less fortunate neighbors succeed, something important has changed in the past few decades: what was once a noisy and impassioned national conversation about how best to combat poverty has faded almost to silence. Back in the 1960s, poverty was a major focus of public debate. You couldn’t be a serious policy intellectual without weighing in on the issue.”

Tough describes the evolving public discourse on poverty in America, drawing a stark contrast between the vibrant debates of the 1960s and the relative silence of more recent decades. By likening the past fervor to a “noisy and impassioned national conversation,” Tough evokes the image of a society actively engaged and vocally committed to addressing poverty, in which being a “serious policy intellectual” necessitated contributing to the dialogue. This metaphor highlights the intensity and ubiquity of past discussions while also underscoring the dramatic change in how poverty appears in public discourse today. The transition to “almost silence” is presented as a significant cultural shift—a collective retreat from confronting poverty with the same vigor and urgency.