Education secretary Bridget Phillipson recently wrote about the importance of preparing young people for the world ahead, highlighting as an essential trait for managing life’s ups and downs.
For teachers, this is a familiar message; one that resurfaces often in policy discussions and school improvement plans. Angela Duckworth’s book Grit was widely influential in the education world nearly a decade ago.
However, the world, and our understanding of children’s needs, has moved on.
While the language of resilience sounds positive, the way it plays out in practice, particularly for neurodivergent children, can be anything but.
Resilience is often interpreted as the ability to “cope”, to keep going, to push through. And while that may reflect some realities of adult life, it raises an important question: are we helping children to thrive or simply training them to endure?
The limits of ‘grit’
In schools grit has become a kind of shorthand for “cٱ”. Children who persist no matter what, who work through discomfort or difficulty, are praised for their resilience. But when this is the only version of resilience that we recognise, I’d argue that we risk celebrating suppression over self-awareness.
This plays out in classrooms every day. Children who appear determined, eager to please and compliant are often held up as examples of resilience, but behind that quiet perseverance there is often an invisible cost.
The same children who seem to be coping at school may experience meltdowns, anxiety or exhaustion the moment they get home. This is perhaps particularly true for children with special educational needs.
Our school counsellor has described some of these children as “burnt out” (not a term she uses lightly) after masking and pushing through day after day.
This isn’t them showing a lack of resilience. It’s a sign that they are working incredibly hard to meet expectations in environments that may not reflect their needs. If we want to support genuine resilience, we need to help children to recognise and regulate these emotional highs and lows - not inadvertently perpetuate them.
This is what we miss when we focus too much on “grit”. Grit says, “Keep going, no matter what.” But real resilience sometimes says, “Pause. Regroup. Come back when you’re ready.”
That’s where the idea of “grace” comes in - a concept that I think is just as valuable to teach children as “grit”.
Why ‘grace’ matters
Grace is not about giving up. It’s about responding to challenges with insight and compassion. It’s the ability to say, “This is hard for me, and I need to move through it differently.”
Grace creates space for reflection, for self-advocacy and for boundary-setting. It values how a child moves through struggle, not just whether they push through it or not.
For neurodivergent children especially, this distinction can be transformative. Their daily school experience often involves considerable emotional labour: masking, navigating sensory overload and adapting to systems not built with them in mind. Telling these children to simply “be resilient” without acknowledging the challenges they face risks pushing them toward burnout.
Grace reminds us that resilience isn’t forged through pressure - it’s cultivated through safety. So, how can schools do this?
If we want to foster real resilience, we need to shift the conditions around the child, not just increase the demands placed upon them. Here are three places to start:
1. Recognise and celebrate reflective resilience
Resilience isn’t only about persistence. It’s also about the ability to tune in, reflect and respond wisely. Schools should celebrate moments when children advocate for themselves, ask for help or recognise what they need, just as much as when they power through.
2. Prioritise emotional safety
Children need to feel emotionally secure before they can build resilience. That means recognising when regulation, not productivity, is the priority. A child who feels seen and supported is far more likely to stretch themselves than one who feels under threat.
3. Model grace in action
Children learn resilience through observing others. Adults who model calm in the face of challenge, who pause rather than push, who show themselves kindness in struggle - these are the people who show children how to build real, sustainable resilience.
Beyond grit
Bridget Phillipson’s aim to increase mental health support for young people is welcome. But framing this through the lens of developing “much-needed grit” misses the nuance of resilience. Grit alone is not enough. That version of resilience leaves little room for the complexity of children’s emotional lives, particularly those who are neurodivergent.
Replacing “grit” with the notion of “grace” changes the narrative. It suggests that strength lies not just in persistence, but in self-awareness and self-trust. It implies that struggle can be a part of growth, but so can rest. It tells us that a resilient child is not the one who hides their pain, but the one who knows they’re safe enough to feel it and work through it in their own way.
Yes, grit might help children to keep going. But grace is what helps them to return to themselves along the way. And that, surely, is the kind of resilience we want to build.
Charlotte MacDougall is senior assistant head at Hazelwood School in Oxted. You can find out more about her at
You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get Tes magazine on and on
