What if the Secret to Success is Failure?. Paul Tough More Quotes by Paul Tough More Quotes From Paul Tough If we don't give kids the opportunity to fail when they're growing up, and to fail productively, to fail creatively, that they're going to get out there into the world and they're going to hit some kind of setback, like everybody does, and they're going to get completely derailed. Paul Tough growing-upopportunitykids What matters most in a child’s development, they say, is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years. What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence. Economists refer to these as noncognitive skills, psychologists call them personality traits, and the rest of us sometimes think of them as character. Paul Tough self-confidencecharacterchildren The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments, and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. Paul Tough growing-updisappointmentchildren If kids've been overprotected from failure in childhood, they get out into the world and they really get thrown off. Paul Tough childhoodkidsworld Optimists, by contrast, look for specific, limited, short-term explanations for bad events, and as a result, in the face of a setback, they’re more likely to pick themselves up and try again. Paul Tough eventstryinglooks And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything. Paul Tough united-statesenvironmentfailing People high in conscientiousness get better grades in high school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer. Paul Tough collegepeopleschool
