Stop pumping kids full of arithmetics – there’s a better way, a review of "How Children Succeed", by Paul Tough

This is not just a book about changing public policy to give impoverished kids the best chance to succeed.  All parents can put the theories of enhancing success factors to work for their children by focusing on character traits such as conscientiousness, grit, delayed gratification, persistence etc.  These non-cognitive skills – and Mr. Tough characterizes them as skills because they are malleable and prone to influence through early intervention – are just as much predictors of success as cognitive skills.  The conventional view of pumping with and measuring child development on the basis cognitive skills, e.g. IQ is outdated.  How well your child can persist when faced with mundane and often unrewarding tasks is more important.  The ability to delay gratification is important, and in that regard, Mr. Tough cites a famous Marshmallow experiment conducted years ago, whereby kids who were able to hold off eating a marshmallow for the promise of eating two became more successful than the ones who forgo the reward.

This very important and entertaining book is about solving the mystery of predicting “who succeeds and who fails”, and there are strong indicators that conventional wisdom may not hold.  Mr. Tough draws on numerous unconventional U.S. educational programs such as KIPP focusing on non-cognitive skills of  children from high stress and adversity familial background, and what methods they have employed to close the gap with children from affluent background.  There are intriguing studies from diverse topics such as chess and nurturing lab rats to explore the neuroscientific and psychological basis of the arguments presented as well.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Link to a September 7th, 2012 WSJ article on this book:  Opting out of the rug rat race