Tenacity in Children examines how multiple generations of parents and caregivers raised children to become successful adults. Until relatively recent times in human history, there were no schools or organized institutions, nor were there parenting books. Rather, caregivers depended on the seven important instincts that evolved across tens of thousands of years in the human species. This volume highlights the ways in which these instincts are more important than ever in preparing children for tomorrow’s successes. Key areas of coverage include individual chapters devoted to examining each of the seven instincts – intuitive optimism, intrinsic motivation, compassionate empathy, simultaneous intelligence, genuine altruism, virtuous responsibility, and measured fairness – as well as practical strategies to guide children in acquiring and fine-tuning these essential human instincts.

Tenacity in Children provides a solid foundation to prepare children for a resilient and happy future. It offers well-defined guideposts for adults committed to providing every child with the opportunity to access, strengthen, and employ these instincts as they negotiate childhood and passage into adult life. This book also serves as a rich resource for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in mental health and public health disciplines as well as many interrelated fields as we all strive to promote the well-being of children.

Michelle Garcia Winner, the Founder of Social Thinking, says:

It’s relatively easy to administer standardized tests and diagnose a child. What’s harder is to figure out how to teach, coach, and nurture each child to build strategies to not only cope and persist, but to excel when thrown off course by life’s many twists and turns. Goldstein and Brooks contribute greatly by addressing concretely the abstract nature of 7 key instincts they define as central to the development of tenacity. An engaging, informative read.