Paul Tough Quotes

• 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

  Children, Character, Self Confidence

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  15 Copy quote

• 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 Up, Kids, Opportunity

  Source: www.pbs.org

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Growing Up, Disappointment

  "How Children Succeed". Book by Paul Tough, January 25, 2013.

  8 Copy quote

• What if the Secret to Success is Failure?.

  Paul Tough

  What If, Secret, Secret To Success

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.220, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Trying, Events, Looks

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.54, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• People high in conscientiousness get better grades in high school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer.

  Paul Tough

  School, College, People

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.71, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

• If kids've been overprotected from failure in childhood, they get out into the world and they really get thrown off.

  Paul Tough

  Kids, Childhood, World

  Source: www.pbs.org

  8 Copy quote

• And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.

  Paul Tough

  United States, Environment, Failing

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.86, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

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