Two years ago, my family moved from London, where we’d lived for the whole of our three children’s lives, to the other end of the country, 200 miles away in York. My eldest, then 12, handled the move with relative aplomb. My youngest, who was six, threw himself with great gusto into his new school, making friends immediately. But my nine-year-old middle child found it incredibly difficult to leave the friends he’d been at school with since he was three and start at a new school where everyone else had been together since they were three. He struggled to find his people, to learn the new routines, to get up earlier than he’d been used to for a longer school day. It was so hard watching him come home exhausted and sad. It was agonising to think of the cosy life we’d left behind, where everything was familiar. (Photo: Lucy Denyer)

Lessons in grit?

Seeing him plod out of the school gates, head low, day after day, made me want to grab onto him and never let him go (as well as punch the living daylights out of anyone who’d made him feel like the weird new kid). But hugs and pep talks aside, I realised there wasn’t a great deal I could do. It became abundantly clear that only time – and my son himself – could change things. So I confess I’m slightly sceptical about the news that the Government is planning to introduce lessons in “grit” to our youngest schoolchildren, in an effort to help prepare them “for life’s ups and downs”. The Education (pictured) and Health secretary recently announced plans to “halt the spiral” towards mental health crisis and “cultivate much-needed grit amongst the next generation” via group and one-to-one sessions to tackle anxiety and low mood. (Photo: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA)

Mental health and young people

There’s no doubt there is an issue with our young people. More than a fifth of eight to 16-year-olds had a probable mental health problem in 2023, according to the latest NHS data – an increase of 17 percentage points since 2017. Poor mental health has been blamed for record school absence levels, with more than 20 per cent of children missing at least one day each fortnight last term. But I am intrigued that the Government has landed on “grit” as the solution, and think they can teach it at school. Because grit – the ability to keep on going regardless – is something that develops as you do difficult things and face difficult situations (like being forced to move the length of the country and leave all your friends behind). Those are the times that present the teachable moments. As my husband is fond of saying, “it’s not how you fall, it’s how you get up again”. (Photo: Getty)

Children will always have bad days

Even if you don’t have to undertake a massive life change like we did, there will always be falls for our kids – or as the Government puts it, “ups and downs”. And for us parents, those “grit” moments are often the ones where we are powerless to do anything except just look on, agonising. And that can be really hard. But it can also be really helpful. Fast forward two years and my middle son takes the bus by himself to school, gets invited to birthday parties and sleepovers and nailed a recent set of exams. He still has sad, bad days, but they are less frequent now, and he’s more sanguine about them. (Photo: Drazen/Getty/E+)

Overprotectiveness is a problem

When it comes to grit, I am just not sure the solution lies in the classroom. The truth is that these days we tend towards the overprotective. We don’t let our children out of our sight. We don’t let them walk to school alone, or go to the shops or to the park by themselves. We keep a wary, digital eye on them at all times, intervene in their fights and audit other parents on class WhatsApp groups. We are far more involved than our parents’ generation ever was. Parenthood has become a job, and we all want to do a good one. It’s hardly surprising that lots of kids are anxious these days. But we are in danger of pathologising the human condition and labelling anything remotely difficult as traumatic. It is normal for life to be rocky at times. And it is normal to feel sad, fearful, angry, and anxious. Those are feelings. They do not have to be conditions. And in my experience, it’s those times when we take our eye off the ball for a moment; when we allow life to get in the way and we stop, or are unable, to do everything for our kids, that they have the chance to develop a bit of gumption. (Photo: Getty)

Still not a smartphone owner

My poor eldest son, now 14 and much to his chagrin, still doesn’t have a smartphone. But, by necessity, he has been crossing London by tube and travelling north on the train by himself for the past couple of years. A while back, he was going to a friend’s house by bus and called to tell me he’d got on the wrong bus, going the wrong way. I told him to cross the street and catch the right one back again. The bus eventually came – and sailed straight past him. The next one wasn’t for half an hour. I advised him to find his way to the train station and catch a train instead. He eventually got to his friend’s house, late but unscathed. A friend was horrified when I told her this – how could I be so callous? But my son tells the story with a laugh (and a roll of his eyes at my hard-hearted parenting). Did it help him develop grit? Absolutely. There have been other, more painful moments where he’s messed up more seriously, and I haven’t been able to save him from himself. It’s been grim to watch, but I’m sure he’s stronger as a result. (Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty)

Resilience is more powerful than grit

Henny Taylor is a coach who offers resilience training to children. She describes resilience – something deeper and even more powerful than grit – as “the ability to know that you can handle what life throws at you, even if you’re feeling terrible in the process. It’s knowing you’re not broken, even when you’re feeling awful.” Crucially, she adds, it is “the knowledge that you are built to withstand this life, to survive and thrive. It’s not something that can be built or poured in, it’s something to be uncovered if you can just shine the light on it.” I love the idea that my children – and I – have an innate ability to handle life’s ups and downs; that even if things are tough, it will pass. That they don’t have to be broken by the hard times. (Photo: Reuters/Eddie Keogh)

On the move again

And that’s lucky because the “grit” moments keep on coming. In two months, thanks to the vagaries of my husband’s job, we are on the move again – this time across the Atlantic to America, for another couple of years. I am gearing myself up for the move and anticipating that the road ahead won’t be totally smooth. But my middle son’s approach to the next move is striking: “I won’t find this time as hard,” he told me, “because I know what it’s like now.” So as I pack up our house, and we start to say goodbye to friends, and wonder who the new ones will be, and begin to both be thankful for and mourn the life we have built here, I am gritting my teeth and remembering that a bit of grit is what pearls are made of. (Photo: NurPhoto via Getty)