STICK-TO-IT-IVENESS

I am the principal of an elementary school. One day a bigger boy was brought into my office for discipline. He had hit two kindergarten classmates on the playground and knocked them down.
"He hit us twice!" the boys said.
"Is this true?" I asked.
"Yes," the older boy said. "I had to hit them twice; they didn't fall down the first time."

STICK-TO-IT-IVENESS: tenaciously resolute; persevering: Stick-to-it-ive people get ahead in life.