Caren Baruch-Feldman || Growing Grit in Teens

clinical psychologist and a certified school psychologist. She has authored numerous articles and led workshops on topics such as cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, helping children and adults cope with stress and worry, helping people change, and developing grit and self control. Her latest book is The Grit Guide for Teens, a workbook to help you build perseverance, self control, and a growth mindset. Thanks for chatting with me today, Karen, Oh,

thank you for having me. Can this guide also apply it to adult teens such as myself? Yes, yes, I wrote it for teens because I think teens really need in today's world to have great But definitely the concept can be applied to myself, and I do say that a lot in the book, and to you too, Scott as well, Great yay. Been to a lot of our listeners who are adults, so why or who have children who are teens, So why did you write this book? How?

Was it? Maybe a natural outgrowth of the work you've done in your clinical practice, So that's sort of actually a key part. It is sort of a natural outgrowth of my clinical practice. So I work with kids, teens and adults who often have anxiety. And what I noticed in my practice was that the kids and the teens and the adults who were able to be gritty and be able to stick with it even when it was

we're the ones who really got better. And it got me thinking, like, yes, I can do this work in my practice, but wouldn't it be great to be able to spread this message to other people? And it's also a personal story for me as well. I have always been very academically gritty, but in terms of my wellness and health not so much. So what I did was I started to read everything that there was out there on the topic and try to apply it to myself.

And that's also a kind of like a little bit of a personal mission on myself to help people when grow their own grit. So how long have you been interested in grit? So I would say I've been interested in the topic of helping people change and self control and willpower for a number of years. I've always been really fascinated by the question of how people change people office or I see kids in school and they say they want to do things differently, and despite having those goals,

they don't accomplish them. So I've always been interested in, like what makes people stick to the goals that they set out. And so, as I said, for a very long time, I've been thinking about that. And then I guess in terms of writing about that, i'd say in the last like, you know, five years, but actually and

I know we talked about it. I had the pleasure of studying with Walter Michelle when I was in Barnard, which was a very long time ago, and he sort of got me very interested in the topic of self control and also the topic of how people are different in different situations. And so one of the things I was really interested in is sort of my own personal story is really gritty. Why am I not doing that

in a different domain. So part of what I really was interested in in sort of part of positive psychology was looking at people's strengths and seeing how can we apply what we're doing in our strength to an area where we want to grow? Sure and WALTI Michelle's still going strong, isn't he? Yes? Yes, it's amazing what a human being? So Okay, Well, I'd like to know a little bit how you defined grit. Do you define it in the same way as angel Duckworth. I define great

similar to Angela Duckworth. I based a lot of my book and my research on her work. She defines it as passion and perseverance for goals. One thing I would add to my definition is adding the word meaningful. Although you hear Angela talk, she often talks about things being meaningful, But for me, it's having a goal that's really important to you and be able to persist in that goal and being able to rebound when things get tough. That's how I would define great. So for you as resiliency

an intimate part of that, Yes, definitely. I think for me, like again from my clinical perspective, helping people learn that on the path of success, there are going to be moments of temporary setbacks and that that's part of the journey.

I think that message has really been important to me and the teens and the children that I work with, so reframing that that that's what all people do, that that's what happens when you look at successful people, that they do have setbacks and learning how to deal with setbacks as well as when things are really tough, how do you stick with things? And then also how do you ultimately decide that maybe something isn't for you? Because I don't think that grit is just about continually just

to knock your head. And what I sometimes say is the word perseverance and perseverance are very similar. They're just a little bit different in the way you put the accent. And my goal is not to encourage people to be perseverance, but rather to be have these goals and often to do them, not only often for yourself but for other people. That's like, for me, the highest level that we can achieve in terms of being gritty fair enough. I mean, was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz delusional or gritty

or both? Well? I actually I don't know if you're using that because you read my book but I actually, you know, I read your book. I know what I'm saying, Come on now, and yeah, the end part is I do talk about Doc Dorothy in the last chapter, and I closed with Dorothy in that way. I do think the story of Dorothy really shares. One of the most important parts to me is that grit is The word grit has the word ey in it, but it also has the word tea for team. And for me, what

made Dorothy gritty was the team that she had. She couldn't have done this whole journey by herself. She needed

her people to get it across. And that's one of the things that I think I really wanted as an important message to share with people is that when you look at people who are able to do this, or if I look at myself, when there were times when even writing this book, when I was like at a loss, it was because of my people, and you're one of my people, Scott, by the way, that I was able to do this, and so I think I can't under

express that enough. Also, when I would interview teens and they would tell me what helped them, they often said it was a parent, it was a teacher, it was somebody in their life that got them to be able to persist and be resilient. Wait, did you answer if Dorothy was delusion or gritty? It's Dorothy delusional, and what aspect that she was delusional? That she wanted to get back to Kansas? So what part are you saying is being her being delusional? Didn't she dream the whole thing?

Did she dream the no? Say, I guess so, I guess. You know, whatever dreams are inspirational, I think it's really like a metaphor not necessarily a actual story. I'm not encouraging people to, you know, get into these kind of dreams. But I do think, as I said to you, what I learned from the Dorothy story is not necessarily whether

that she was having a dream or not. But what struck me about her story was that the way she ultimately was able to get home and to do what she needed to do was when she surrounded herself with the people who couldn't inspire her. So I hope I answered your question yes fair enough, Yes you did? You did? So?

Is there a formula for grit? So a formula in terms of one thing that I read that Angela Duckworth had written in a paper, and I really like in terms of the formula, is like an economic principle, which is that when a goal is important to you, when the costs are low and your likelihood of success is high, you will accomplish and be able to be gritty or accomplish your goal. So when I work with people, I try to look at it across those three premises. Is

the goal important to you? Like the thing you're saying you want to be gritty about. Let's say you want to be more emotionally gritty. So, for example, I have someone in my practice right now who is socially wants to put herself more out there. She wants to be able to talk to people to feel more comfortable. So is that goal important? Yes, the goal is important to her. B Are the costs too high? Does it feel like

too scary? What I know from my work is that when things are from like an eight to a ten on that anxiety thermometer, people aren't going to do it. So I need to bring the costs down. So I'll say to her, is there somebody at work that you kind of feel more comfortable with? Could you talk to them? So I bring the cost down? Is her likelihood of success high. So again, the more she does it, the more she's successful, the more likely she's going to be

doing it. So, as somebody who cares about growing people's grit, I kind of work with that formula and tweak it to make it work, because often the formula is not working. And that's the reason why I think that sometimes, especially the costs cost people, as you know from behavior economics, are very sensitive to costs, So if the costs seem too high, they're not going to be able to do what we're asking them to do. Yeah, but I also feel like people from behavioral economics tend to treat humans

as machines as well, not as human beings. Well, I do think that there is a little bit of philosophical difference in behavior economics in psychology. I think sometimes behavior economics people believe that there are these things that exist, that we are fulty thinkers and people don't change. And as a psychologist and as a student of Walter Mache and Albert Ellis and all these other people, I do

believe that we can change. That the first step is teaching people, and it's not easy to change, but that by learning how our mind works and then kind of tweaking it, we can make changes and I've seen that in my practice. Well, can I be your client? That

sounds amazing? Not not all the time. And I think that's something that's tricky with working with teens is that you know when you have an adult not and this may not even be true all the time for adults, they're coming to you because they want to change a lot of times with teens, and I think this is the trickiest part about doing this work is getting that buy in. How do you get teens so that they

are ready to work? You know, I know you're probably familiar with Protessca and Declem's work on how people change, But sometimes people are pre contemplative. They don't even know that there's a problem. So with teens, sometimes they don't even know that there's a problem that they you know, lacker it and so we have to start where they are and kind of hook them in and see why

this might be important. I think sometimes it's hard to have clinical success when somebody comes to you and they're pre contemplative and you're trying to help them to change and that's not where they are. Yeah, you really do it to meet people where they are you do? And people kind of have to accept themselves first. They kind of have to meet themselves where they are, and we

don't tend to do that, I know. And one of the things I've done in terms of sharing this book and trying to be how to get this message across is one of the things is I've been videotaping teens. One of the themes that I'm hearing them say over and over again is something you just said is about acceptance. I like, for example, interviewed a teen who has Turett's ocd ADHD and what he was saying is that through acceptance he was able to do the hard work that

he needed to do. And each person, when telling their different story, often talks about this theme of acceptance. So I think you're onto something. Oh well, thank you, But I I think you know who used to say that a lot? Carl Rogers used to say that a lot. You know, we need to accept ourselves before we can change ourselves. A lot of people have been saying that, well, thank you. So I want to talk about some of the controversies surrounding Grid and what your thoughts are about them.

What are some of the controversies surrounding grid and what are your thoughts on them? Okay, So I think some of the controversies have been first of all, whether grit, I guess, is different than conscientiousness. That's one of the controversies. Or how well let's start there right. So for me, I guess I'm not a researcher scientist. I am a scientist,

I guess, but a researcher in terms of terminology. But what I definitely know, whatever we call it, this quality that we're describing having a goal and be able to stick with something as important to you and being wise about it and be able to be resilient, I know that that concept from my clinical work, from work I do in my school is really important. So again for me, I don't know what we can call it. We can call it, you know, oongababa, whatever it is that quality

were describing is really important. I also think, and I think this is an important thing. And when I do presentations, I often say what grit is not. So what grit is not is blaming children for their life circumstances. Grit is not saying that other things like inequality and poverty and all those things aren't important. So I think we also have to know that grit is not the end all be all. It's essential, but there are so many

other things obviously that are important to people's success. But grit is one of the things that I think, especially today, given that everything is so short term, is really important to foster in our youth. Yeah. Thanks, Karen. You brought in a bunch of controversies in one there, and I really appreciate. I appreciate that. No, he saved me a voice. Yeah,

and I think that that's right. And so, therefore, if someone is struggling, do you always immediately think, oh that the reason there is that they just might must not have enough grit? No, No, yeah, Like so the short

answer is absolutely not. So I think you know this is a little bit of a sidebar, but I actually and I think you may know this because you said that you saw some of my research papers for when I I did when I did my dissertation, I actually was interested in looking at productivity among traffic agents and one of the things that I looked at were factors

within the organization and factors within the person. And what I found was that obviously it's a combination, but one of the things that was most important, and it's sort of a theme in all the things that I do, is this notion of social support, and the people who had a close group and social support were able to be productive. And I think that also if you even

look at some of this John Henry stuff. I don't know if you're familiar with what I'm talking about, but this notion that if you really especially the notion that some things that are actually helpful even in that population. Obviously, just telling people to gritty have cardiovascular implications. And again back to my dissertation work, I worked in a lab where we were interested in blood pressure and measuring that and looking at that. So that is something from my past.

But one of the things that came out of some of those studies is that the problem there is the lack of social support. So again, just telling people be gritty but not giving them a roadmap or the people or the sport is not the way to do it. So for me, it's really important to look both at the individual but also looking at the environment in terms of what is missing or what do we need to add,

because together those things are important. And I don't think it's right just to say to kids who are poor or who need this more than anything. Oh, we forget about you. We can't do anything that. Then the psychological had of me comes back and says, no, let's figure out there's obviously a problem here. Let's be creative. Let's look at the research. Let's see what's going on there and figure out what we can do, both internally and

externally to make this better. That sounds great, and the problem is not always well grit right, So the solution is not always growing grit right. So that's yes, absolutely. It might be environmental, it might be the teachers, it might be the culture, it might be something else. But I think that and again, if you ever hear Angela speak, she's talking about one part of it. Just because I'm speaking about grit doesn't mean that these other things aren't important.

But I do think that we can being mindful of some of this other data out there, even about some of the cardiovascularists, especially among poor kids, you know, that we can help people be more long term minded, because ultimately, for me, grit is also about being more long term minded, and I think that that has incredible value today in

the world we're living where everything is like instantaneously. You know, people say that if they go to a website and they don't get the results within three seconds, they're done with that website. Or I know when I go to a restaurant now they have like, you know, an app where you can pick up the phone. Nobody's learning how to wait and how to wait for the long term. So I think, again, in this world that we're living, I think it's really important for us to help teens

and adults cultivate that long term more mindful self. I totally agree with that. So let's focus for a second on teens. Why do you write this book for teens? Like, what do you think is the core thing maybe with this generation that is kind of inspiring you to to try to fix. First of all, I have two teens. I have an eighteen year old and I have a fifteen year old, and I think today it's really hard to be a teen. I think that there's a lot

of pressure on teens to compete. I think this whole notion of everything being instantaneous is unique to this generation. I know, you know again with the phone and the social media and everything those pressures. I'm seeing such an increase in social anxiety in my practice in recent years. So I think that there's a lot of forces, and also teens emotionally, they feel things really strongly, so that when they have failure it can feel crushing and things

in the moment can feel very pressurized. So I wanted to write this for them, especially to help them to think about things and behave in ways that researchers are showing us can help them in this more challenging time. I also think that parents today are different than parents

in the past. I think that you know, in the past, like when I was growing up, I think my parents felt their job as a parent was to make an independent, autonomous person, whereas I think today parents feel very overwhelmed themselves, and they're anxious and they want to protect their kids. So often kids don't experience failure or they are kind of bubble wrapped, and so I think that that's why I wanted to write this specially for teens today. Kids

don't experience failure. Well, a lot of kids, especially in poor SS, experience failure every day of their lives, right right, So I think that we have two sort of different groups. I think that we have the bubble wrap helicopter snowplow kind of parenting society who are protecting their kids. And then you're absolutely right, there are teens who having it really really tough, who you know, have all the stuff going on outside their life, and who if they just

show up at school that took a lot. So I think that the stress, and we also know that being stressed makes us more in tune and wanting to do what's going to be good in the short term. So I think that because of both those polls even more so, we need to help kids learn what again, what we know can help them in these situations. Cool. Cool, So what are the two minds you talk about in your book? Oh?

So I am really sort of that intrigued about this notion, as I said to you before, about how people change, Like if you think you want to, for example, exercise, why are you not exercising? Like what happens? So we have this kind of two minds, you know, Danny Cadaman speaks about having two minds, Walter Michelle talks about having

two minds. So all philosophers talk about this. So we have part of us that sort of gravitates to what feels good in the moment, and then we have what feels good in the long term, and I feel like the short term part of ourselves comes out in a scream and the long term more in a whisper. And so a lot of the techniques that I talk about in the book try to take the long term and bring it into the present so that it's more concrete

and it's more available. So, for example, writing down your goals or writing down on why this would be good for you to do is a technique to make the foggy future a little bit more concrete and more likely to be successful. And so in my practice, a lot of the things that I do is trying to use those techniques to try to bring the long term mind up to the forefront and sort of recognize and accept that we all have that short term mind, but maybe bring it a little bit further to the back. Yeah.

I like that. I do like that, And especially a lot of people in harsh and unpredictable environments tend to focus on the present because their future is not certain, right, And sometimes that's adaptable, right, And it's adaptive. And even there's been studies with Walt Michelle's Marshmallow study that when the researcher who was you know, just to sort of give everybody. Probably people everyone knows the Marshmallow study, but

just for those who don't. You know, there was this option with children preschoolers that they had one marshmallow now or two marshmallows later. But when he ran the study where the researcher was very undependable, where it was not so clear whether or not they were really going to give them the second marshmallow, then less people chose the

second marshmallow. So if your life is always feeling like you don't know if people are going to give you the second marshmallow, why would you wait for the second marshmallow? So I think that that's really really true, and I think we need to be aware of that and figure

out how do we then make things more dependent. How as teachers and people who work with kids, like the Boys and Girls Club, A lot of those places I think are working because they're setting a schema where there are these dependable, caring people who provide structure and support, and you know that there will be some level consistency. Yeah, I think that's right, and kind of a thoughts about the future and having hope that there is going to

be a future is important. It's just as important, if not more important than actually having grit itself right, it's able to imagine that future. Right, So what do you mean by the power of yet? So the power yet

comes from Carol Zwax's work on growth mindset vice. The notion of is that sometimes people have and she's done research to talk about the notion that some part of what we call the fixed mindset, which is that when I approach a task and it's challenging, that means that these are the talents, this is what I bring to it, and that's it, versus a growth mindset, which means is that when I approach something, I can grow and learn and change from that, and that I'm not fixed in

the level of skills that I have. And she has also talked about the power of yet, which is sort of an outgrowth of growth mindset, which is when you add the word yet to your sentence, it makes you feel more optimistic, it helps you develop more of that growth mindset. So if I haven't you know, finished the paper I set out to do, or if I'm having a problem with a math problem, I'm just not there yet, as opposed to this is all I can do and

that's it, And the power. Yet I find when I get presentations or when I talk to my kids or even my kids at home, they'll sometimes throw back yet to me. So it's a very three little letters have been very powerful. And one of the things I do in the exercises in the book is that instead of saying yes and no whether or not something is accomplished, it's yes and not yet, because I would look have that kind of scheme of that mindset that if something is not done, it's just not done yet. Oh that's

really nice. I think that's tied to the whole point that I was making earlier. Right, Yes, you've hoped that it will eventually with patients, and it's also tied to your future oriented thinking thing. It's all tied, isn't it. Yeah. Maybe it's also tied to the importance of setting effective goals as well. Can you talk to a little bit about maybe one or two ways that you can, like, what's an effective goal versus give me an example of

an ineffective goal. So I think that some things that I see with teens or even parents when they set goals with their kids. Sometimes, first of all, people set goals that are what they don't want to have happened, so they don't want their kids to yell or it's a negative. So an effective goal is set in what you want to say, So I think that that's really important. I also think it has to be measurable, so something that I and them everyone would agree what that would

look like. So it's very specific. So it should be specific, it should be measurable. It should also be really important to the person. So again, sometimes I work with parents. They have a goal, but it's not their kids or their teens goals, so the goal must be meaningful to them. Often when I start with goals, and this is a little bit of I guess my clinician hat coming in, I start with goals that I feel are not yet reached.

Like I like success to breed success. So sometimes with grit, we always talk about stretch goals that they're really tough and they're really hard, but where I like to start. Often our goals that are maybe a little bit of a stretch, but the kid can really imagine it can be concrete, going back to getting that long term part of them getting involved to get done, and once they get those goals done, then we can build on and

we can do more of those stretch goals. So that's the kind of way I like to work when I work with teens or anybody in my practice or school, or in throughout the book. Cool. You know, stretch goals do remind me of the construct of curiosity, and Todd Kashton has talked about, you know, a stretching form of curiosity where we are constantly trying to reach unknown heights of ourselves and things like that. So I think the

curiosity construct is important here. It's not the same thing as grit, but maybe grit combined with curiosity not Maybe a research has shown that grit combined with curiosity is most effective for creativity and creative achievement. So cool, I like that. So how can we better connect with our values? It seems like, you know, just being gritty for the sake of grittiness, is I don't think is what you're

advocating among teens. You talk about values in the book as well, so maybe you could give some advice on how to how teens can better connect with their deepest heiled values. Right, So there's an exercise. Again. What I tried to do in this book is lots of these concept comes from the researchers who've done really important work

on this. So there are researchers who study values. And what I sort of propose is a set of values that people have used in the literature, and things like curiosity, creativity, love, family, friends, and when people can connect what is a goal to that value, they can do great things. So, for example, if I have the value of family, and let's say I'm sort of interested in raising my academic grit, how do I type this desire to do maybe be gritty

with my academics to this value of family. How do I think about it in that way so that my core value is sort of driving the bus. It is when our values drive our bus, we can do again, great and hard things. So that's how I sort of tie that. And there have been some exercises which are either stealthy or not so stealthy, where you basically have teens young adults write about their values, and what they've found is by simply writing about their values, they've been

much more successful in college and things like that. So we can do that, or we can even be a little bit more deliberate in terms of the way I approach it in the book, which is that we talk about those values and then we say, okay, looking at that value, how do you then tie it to the goal that you want to become more gritty in nice? And you've like your book is chock full of activities. You've got more activities than text rist. Yes, so that there's a lot of practical stuff there for teenagers as

well as parents and teachers of teenagers. So you talked a little bit about mindfulness already, you covered that why does gratitude matter? How's gratitude related to grit So gratitude for me, it sort of is the lens that you're

going to be looking at your life through. So when you're grateful, you're focusing on what is working, what is positive, what is good in your life, And that also is decreases stress, which stress is sort of the kryptonite of grip, and it also lets you be more optimistic and more positive, which also are things that you need to be in terms of being resilient and persistent. So it's it's a mindset to go through life that sort of helps sort of are like the bricks, the cornerstones of what you

need to sort of be gritty. So if you're and you're looking for what things that are positive. It's going to have some like ripple and effects on seeing other things in a more optimistic, positive way. I often talk about this experiment that I do where I do this thing where I ask the audience to try to find the red in the room, and then I'm kind of tricky about this, and then I'll say this is actually based on Susan fe I saw her do this experiment then asking them what do they see that was blue?

And then obviously they can't tell me anything blue because I told them to look for red. But the point is is that what we look at becomes prominent in our life. So if we are focusing on what we're grateful for, the things that are working and the positive a it makes us have more positive emotions be it shapes our view of the world. A lot of my patients who are anxious or depressed, I give them the

homework assignment of every day. At the end of the day, I want them to write down three things that they're grateful for. And the reason, and I explained it to them, is that that way, all day long, they're going to be noting the things that are going and w working well for their lives as opposed to walking around which with their negative a bias that we all have, but especially when you're anxious and depressed, you have looking at all things that aren't working. Yeah, that seems like a

really sensible advice. So it seems like it's important to like, teenagers don't have a role book, like what I mean, they should all read your book, but they're we're not born with this. I don't know. I guess now you've written the book. We're all born with this book. But it's important having a cheerleader in your life, is the

point I'm trying to make here. Regardless, you know, there's really someone that can instill these values in you, like teach you smart goals, Like we're not really taught these things in school. Right, So you talk about the importance of teenagers having a cheerleader, right, Yes, So yes, I don't think that we are taught these things in school, but I do think and this is something I believe in. And this is actually how we met. Was that IPEN,

which is the International Positive Education Network. Their mission is to teach these things in schools, and I do, and that's some of the work that I do in my school, right, now and I actually work with teachers where we not only talk about academics, but we also teach kids how to have things like grit and self control, but also things like kindness and empathy and persistence and even curiosity and creativity and how we can teach these things because

I believe these all these things can be taught, and they can be taught again, like you said, best when you have that cheerleader, when you have that person who has your back, has your back and also is your accountability partner. So I actually, and I don't know if I told you the Scott, I decided to sign up for the New York City Marathon, which is definitely a

stretch goal for me. But the way I'm feeling like that this is getting done is that I have a cheerleader, my friend who were doing this together, and every time I do my training, I send her my little map, my walks thing about my time and she does that and we do it together. And by doing things together, I feel that's the best way for me to accomplish this stretch goal. Great, when is the big race. It's my first week in November. Oh wow. And I'm also,

by the way, doing it with a sense of purpose. Actually, I did other marathon and half marathon. I only have done half marathons. And when I did the other half marathon, my daughter is like, why did you run thirteen miles? Like, She's like, were you running from somebody? I'm like, no, did you do it for charity? And I said no. So it made me think I'm going to do this for a charity, and so I'm actually doing it for the Turet Association with I have a lot of patients

who have turets and have OCD and anxiety. And when I think that I'm doing this for other people, it also helps me to kind of do really hard things. So that's another thing that I think is a big message that I would say to people is like that sense of purpose, Oh absolutely, that's purpose is essential as well as values. So what is grit for life? Let's end with this question. Gritful life is helping people be

the best version of themselves. That's what I'm really hoping to accomplish with this book is helping teens really kind of hook into what's important to them. How can they have passion for that and how can they persist in something even when things are tough and also knowing also when it's reasonable to quit. But I want people to be able to quit when they think that it makes sense, not as opposed to when their emotions sort of overtake them. So for me, I guess that would be great for life.

Would be be the best version of yourself? Oh? I like that. That's also a major mission of positive psychology, which we talked a lot about a lot of the major themes about today. Well, thanks Karen so much for chatting with me today and all the best with your new book. Thank you, it's been a pleasure, and thank you for letting me have this opportunity. Thank you so much for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as

thought provoking as I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in some way, iourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.