Want To Resilience Train Your Child? Start By Being Less Helpful. {Video}

*

Want To Listen To The Article Instead?

*

Struggle Is Essential:

Research shows that struggling is absolutely critical to mastery and that the highest achieving people in the world are those who have struggled the most. The more I communicate this message to parents and teachers the more stories I hear of complete personal transformation.

Struggle now, enjoy later.
Enjoy now, struggle later.

When students look at me and say: “This is hard,” I say, “That is fantastic.”
An international study of mathematics teaching found that teachers in Japan put their students in places of struggle 44 percent of the time in classrooms—they saw this less than 1 percent of the time in U.S. classrooms. What do we parents and teachers do instead? We jump in and show the way, offering steps to a solution to help save our students from struggle.

Once we stop the charade of knowing everything, and embrace knowing less, with a willingness to sit with uncertainty, unexpected things happen.

*

Resilience Training:

We can make many manifestos of how our life must be. But if it remains a discussion or theory, its . It’s not even a testing ground.
When we become parents, we’re directly dropped into the training grounds. So, it’s our mindset and our action that counts from day one.

Our vocabulary around parenting must be around empowering. All these below actions that lead to self-confidence and empowerment:

Ask them if they know why you do certain things around the house. Allow for creative problem solving for their own issues.
Fail them often – every day, without helping. Giving them that space so they can think for themselves.

It’s not about CAN you help them, it’s about WILL you help them? Not unless it’s a question of life and death.

More responsibility => more empowerment!

*

Teens and Self Worth:

So much of what your teen does and doesn’t is tied to his or her self-worth. If she’s procrastinating, it’s because she’s under challenged or over challenged. If she’s is not goal oriented, she’s thinking she doesn’t deserve the goals she aspires to. If she’s not holding herself accountable, it’s because she thinks she’s capable of taking care of herself.

Teens, believe it or not, so much of what you do is because of peer pressure – “others are doing it too”.

One of our first modules is “Strength finder”. Teens who are self-aware, understand their strengths and feel competent are more likely to stay motivated and push through temporary setbacks with confidence and determination.

High results are achieved in the framework of high expectations. If the teen knows that there are caring adults who believe in their potential, strive to work best in all areas of their lives – school, home, relationships and interests.

Students who’re engaged in conversations of “What problems do they want to solve for the world” or “How do they plan to leave a positive mark in the world” can carve through their thoughts and actions with a clarity of personal identity and purpose.

Help them understand why it’s so difficult to love ourselves. It’s because we know ourselves all too well. And we can’t forgive ourselves for all the “flaws” we have. But, isn’t loving ourselves the first step to starting on a journey of positive progress.