Summary of Paul Tough's How Children Succeed is a journalistic review of the most recent research connecting success in adulthood with character development in childhood, and the programs that use character to motivate and teach low-performing children to become high achievers. Most school curricula and measures of future success for children are historically rooted in cognitive indicators like math ability, language skills, and critical thinking. While those indicators are significant factors in future success, even children who score high in cognitive indicators struggle if they have low non-cognitive indicator scores. Non-cognitive indicators, including conscientiousness and grit, are also known as character traits.