There are a lot of personality traits that can help us through life. One in particular that I’ve been thinking about is grit, which has been defined as having courage and determination despite difficulty. Some think that grit is a trait that people are born with. I believe that grit can be learned through experience, especially through the difficult trials that life hands us and how we react to them.
Perhaps you have heard the mantra, “I can do hard things.” This is a powerful statement to say to yourself when you are faced with something overwhelming. Knowing that you can do something hard gives you courage to face a difficulty and to persevere through it. I have repeated this phrase to myself many times when I have felt like giving up when experiencing a tough situation.
Teaching grit to children is of utmost importance and actually takes grit for parents to do it. As parents, we often want to take away stumbling blocks or shield our children from difficult things. Keeping them from scraping their knees (either actually or figuratively) does them a disservice in learning how to navigate life as an adult. My mother told me many times not to touch the iron, but it wasn’t until I actually placed my palm on the hot iron that I realized what she was trying to warn me about….and then I never did it again.
Living through the pandemic has taught all of us grit. It was, and continues to be, hard. Like many of you, I never thought it would last as long as it did and so figuring out how to make it through the long days of isolation, with no end in sight, took grit. Those were hard, lonely days and all the uncertainty of the situation we were living through required us to have courage and determination to just keep going. I can imagine the children of today telling their children one day about living through the pandemic, much as my grandparents told me about living through the Depression.
Our family had an experience with grit that we have reflected on many times over the years. When we lived in Texas we heard about a triathlon for kids where they would swim 140 yards, bike four miles, and run one mile. Our three oldest daughters (who were 13, 11, and 9 at the time) all wanted to do it and started training. Having moved there from Washington State, the heat and humidity was oppressive, but they tried their best to get ready for the event.
The day arrived and everything started out great. The girls were excited to be participating and invigorated by all the cheering of the parents and other spectators. My husband and I and our youngest daughter were assigned as volunteers along the route, so we were able to be right there with them as they were doing their laps.
Everything was going well until I realized that I hadn’t seen Clarissa (11) for a while. Margaret and I were at the water station and were enjoying encouraging the participants as they came by and we had seen Laura and Sadie. When Clarissa finally came by, she was in tears. She told me that she had crashed and her bike had gotten mangled. Some volunteers had tried to fix it, but in so doing had caused her back tire to rub against the frame and now it barely turned. Basically, the bike wouldn’t move without extreme effort on Clarissa’s part.
As a loving mom, I just wanted to tell her that she had given it her best and she could stop the race. She had been dealt a rough hand with the crash and had already done a great job. But I knew this was a defining moment for her and would teach her a lot in her future. I cried with her, acknowledged how hard this all was, prayed with her, gave her a drink of water, and encouraged her to keep going. She climbed back on and finished her laps.
When it came time for her to run her mile and cross the finish line, she was so upset and so discouraged. We joined her and ran with her for a while and then peeled off so that she could cross the finish line by herself. At the end of the finish line, all the other race participants had already gathered for the final victory photo, but they cheered her and waited for her to be able to join with them. She was frustrated to have come in last, but we cheered her for her victory over the damaged bike and for finishing even with such a discouraging day.
When my husband collected the bikes and put them on the rack on the van, he looked closely at her bike and tried spinning the wheel. It was impossible to do so and it took effort for him to turn it past the rubbing point. Roch called to the event organizer (a veteran of multiple iron-man triathlons) to look at the wheel. He gaped when he saw it, and said that was a badge of honor. He proclaimed Clarissa a true triathlete and told her how proud of her he was and that he was going to write her story down to share with others.
It took a while for Clarissa to see this day as a victory. It’s hard for an 11-year-old to realize that being the last one to cross the finish line in a race isn’t an embarrassment, especially after the race day she had. The lessons she learned about herself and the abilities that she had to persevere in the face of discouragement made her a winner that day and taught her about grit in a way that only life could teach her. For having grit is something we all need if we are to make it through the inevitable difficult times we will face in life.
Clarissa rides her bicycle early on in the Kids Only Triathlon. The bike was damaged in the event, making pedaling the bike hard for the youth, but helped her learn determination.