Just my thoughts

As adults that are responsible for children, i.e. parents, teachers, and coaches, I believe that we have several responsibilities that we should always be considering when dealing with those children. I think of those little brains as tiny filing cabinets that start off mostly empty, and throughout life, they are filled with thoughts, experiences, and strategies to refer to when needed to make choices in life. As the keeper of those ‘files’, we share a responsibility to give them the proper experiences and advice, so that they form correct strategies to use in their lives.

#1) Independence

    When children learn to be independent, they learn confidence and self-responsibility. When we give them the tools to learn to do things for themselves, they can learn to achieve on their own. When we give them opportunities to do things for themselves and by themselves, they learn how to be independent from others.

   I have a son with disabilities. My job is not to do all things he struggles to do for him, but to try to find ways to help him do them on his own. There will be many things that he will not be able to do on his own, so why would I take away any things that he can? I would be doing him a huge disservice by doing everything for him. But that goes for all children. My other two have already learned that there are things around our house that they are perfectly capable of doing, like laundry or dishes, so they do. Not always without urging, but they are children, which makes them a work in progress. This also means letting them fall. Our job is not to keep our children from hurting or failing, our job is to help them fall gracefully, teach them to learn from it, and how to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, and move forward in life. Learning from our mistakes is one of the biggest ways that we learn as human beings.

#2) Taking responsibility for one’s self, and one’s actions

     This is a major life lesson that, let’s face it, many adults never learned. How frustrated are we when we come across those adults in our lives? Don’t we feel like teaching the next generation to take responsibility can only improve society? I think it is a huge life lesson to learn that the choices we make have consequences, good and bad. The sooner we learn that our choices are our own, the sooner we can learn what those consequences are, and how we feel about them. More importantly, what we learn from them and how to respond to them.

  I use the example of my son’s experiences in sports, as well as my own learning experiences having an athlete as a son. Although he is only 8 now, he clearly loves sports, and does well enough that I have no choice but to figure out how to parent an athlete, even though I am the least competitive person ever. I truly don’t care about winning, which is just great when you don’t play sports, but clearly my son needs to want to win, or else he won’t even want to try. Truthfully, of course he wants to win, he’s a naturally competitive kid. My job is to teach him to work hard, and win (or lose) with grace and humility. This is a lesson I am learning (not grace and humility, clearly I am brimming with both… haha), but I am learning how to foster those traits in him. Especially in this off-the-charts crazy children’s sports world that our society has created… but that’s a whole other bottle of wine…..

      The other day they had a really bad game, which is unlike this team. So when these things happen, and I feel like Ryan may be holding back, or at least not playing up to his ability, I talk to him about it. (Note: Not during the game, or even always right after the game, there is a time when these talks can be productive, and there are times where they won’t. After a hard loss is probably not the time.) I asked him what he thinks went wrong, and he quickly responds with something to do with the coaches…. Blah blah. So I stopped him and asked, “Now wait, are you telling me that you played as hard as you can, and you did everything perfectly?” Of course he said no, so I explained that when you are on a team, it is up to everyone to take responsibility for their part in every aspect of the team, including mistakes in a game. When everyone is taking responsibility for their part, then productivity can occur. When one, or many, decide that it isn’t their fault, or not up to them, things quickly become unproductive. This includes everyone taking responsibility for their part; players, coaches, and parents. And this includes all aspects of life. Children model what you do, so learn to take responsibility for your own behavior if you want them to learn to take responsibility for theirs. (What a wonderful life lesson teaching moment, huh?)

#3) (And I believe most important) Confidence

            Our biggest responsibility as adults is to build confidence in our children. Confidence gives them an understanding of themselves, and the power to believe in themselves. When an adult stands over a child and yells, or tells them only everything that they are doing wrong, we take all of the power away from them. And no one likes to feel powerless. Also, they will learn nothing from it, other than maybe that there is something wrong with them, which is clearly not in our job description. What would happen if I, as a teacher, stood over my students and yelled at them for not knowing how to multiply? Besides a potential lawsuit, what am I really accomplishing? Certainly not the ability to multiply...

   The other day my middle child Luke, 10 years old, was upset with me for making him get off of the computer. Luke has always been a master negotiator; he wants a thorough explanation that makes sense to him. Although sometimes frustrating as a parent, in the end, not a bad trait to have for life. So I asked him, "So do you think that as a parent, it is a good idea for me to allow you to sit in front of a computer for 6 hours and ignore your family? Or do you think that maybe it is a good parenting move to get you off of the computer to spend time with your family?" Now, I said this not in a smart alec way, but in a very calm and honest way, so that he could understand my point. He got it. I didn't just give him a "because I said so" answer, because that doesn't actually mean anything at the end of the day. Giving him an explanation that makes sense to him, and he can understand, means it is something he can take with him. After all, we only have them for a short time, so I want him to take many life lessons with him that will help him throughout his life.

     Children are eager to learn, and are always watching and learning from our words and actions, good and bad. They can learn to imitate what we do, but it doesn’t mean that they correctly processed it. To correctly teach a child, it takes patience and explanation in terms that they are capable of understanding; this depends on the age of the children to an extent, but all children can learn from an adult calmly explaining something. When we build up those life lessons and learning experiences in a positive way, children will respond positively, and that builds the confidence to try new things. When they become successful at trying new things, this can only build more confidence. When a child gains self-confidence, there is no limit to what they feel that they can do. This creates confident adults, who want to work hard and try new things. When we put more choices into their behavior playlists, then they have a whole slew of 'files' to choose from when they come to a crossroads. If we have done our jobs correctly, we can sit back and relax, and watch our hard work payoff.

 

So as the “keepers of the files”, we have an extremely important job, with many responsibilities, in my opinion. I hope that we learn to be independent, hold ourselves accountable, and build our own confidence, in order to be good role models to all those sweet babies out there. Just my thoughts. J