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
scientists have reached a consensus in the past decade that the
key channel through which early adversity causes damage to developing
bodies and brains is stress
It wasn’t poverty itself that was compromising the
executive-function abilities of the poor kids. It was the stress that
went along with it.
The second, called the cognitive control system, allows you to
regulate all those urges. The reason the teenage years have always been
such a perilous time, Steinberg says, is that the incentive processing
system reaches its full power in early adolescence while the cognitive
control system doesn’t finish maturing until you’re in your twenties. So
for a few wild years, we are all madly processing incentives without a
corresponding control system to keep our behavior in check
Parents and other caregivers who are able to form close, nurturing
relationships with their children can foster resilience in them that
protects them from many of the worst effects of a harsh early
environment. This message can sound a bit warm and fuzzy, but it is
rooted in cold, hard science. The effect of good parenting is not just
emotional or psychological, the neuroscientists say; it is biochemical.
But the principle behind it—improving children’s outcomes by
promoting stronger relationships between children and their parents—is
increasingly in use across the country in a wide variety of
interventions
Seligman and Peterson defined character in a different way: a set
of abilities or strengths that are very much changeable—entirely
malleable, in fact. They are skills you can learn; they are skills you
can practice; and they are skills you can teach
It seemed that what Stefl was attempting to do was convince her
students that not just their intelligence and their character but their
very destinies were malleable; that their past performance was not an
indication of their future results
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