Success factors

(cont'd, How Children Succeed)

Fully living life means that you overcome problems and obstacles, that you choose between possibilities, that you imagine better things and you build something. Stress is involved.

Stress happens to everybody including children, and that's a good thing.  If a child has a parent who helps him recover from failure and adversity, he/she will be resilient and braver for life.  

But disadvantaged children by definition grow up in a chronically stressed home that may  include abandonment, abuse, alcohol, poverty, etc.  Living like this means that the child's chemical stress response system does lifelong damage if, as is often the case, no one trains him/her to recover from stress and adversity.

The emphasis to help children succeed at school has lifted off of flashcards and educational toys - to an effort to help parents be supportive.  Non-profits often coach parents now to build character qualities into their kids, something they don't know how to do if they haven't had it from their own parents.

The KIPP organization is one effort to work with parents to build successful behavior and thinking into the lives of poor children.  KIPP schools combine intense academic training with equally intense training in character qualities like self-control and optimism.