Safe Environments for Success

A father was out bike riding with his son when they came to a branch blocking the path. The father said to the boy, “This looks like a job for you! Move the branch.”

The boy tried but was unable to budge the branch. He returned to his father and said, “It’s too heavy. I can’t do it.”

His father encouraged him, “Try again and this time, use all of your strength!”

The boy went back to the branch and after pushing and pulling for all he was worth, he said, “Dad, I can’t do it. I need your help.”

“Ah,” said the father, “Now you are using all of your strength!”

Every step along the parenting journey, we want to develop resilient kids who are able to see and succeed at the challenges in front of them. Sometimes the struggle is what teaches the greatest lesson. Other times, a helping hand from a nearby parent makes all the difference. So, how do we know the right time to help and the right time to stand back and give encouragement?

When our children are learning to walk and they fall, we don’t yell, “Stop falling, you quitter!” Instead, we cheer and say, “WOW! Great job! You took THREE STEPS!” At the same time, we move stuff out of their way – to open a clear path for greater achievement. Living in a safe place makes conquering life’s challenges possible. Creating safe places isn’t just about keeping plastic stoppers in power-points and gates at the top of stairs. Safe places are environments where learning is the default because challenges are available and reasonable to the level of the learner.

Now that our kids are in school, we still need to be creating safe environments for success. Some obstacles are part of the challenge, others need to be moved. Nobody knows your child and their capabilities like you do. You spend more hours with them than anyone. To build resilience, kids need to know they can face challenges and conquer the next level of difficulty. Like learning to walk; learning maths, reading, writing and any other subject requires failure and success. Resilient kids have the try-try-again mentality developed through repeated learning experiences of various kinds with one constant – your presence.

Sometimes you cheer. Sometimes you reach out your hand. Other times you do both. These interactions build resilience, stick-to-it-iveness, bravery and confidence in your child. They know you are there for them – and together, anything is possible!

Family

We humans care about those we love. We give our time, energy and resources to help make life better for those whom we consider family. As the social structure of the world has changed over the past, we have regularly redefined family.

A few thousand years ago, my family was my blood. I cared about you if I had the same parents as you. From this time in history we get the saying, “Blood is thicker than water.”

A few thousand months ago, my family was my people. We believed the same thing. We lived the same way. We were a tribe. We looked, acted and thought in similar ways.

A few thousand weeks ago, my family was my country. We had national pride. We ate the same food. We spoke the same language. We shaped our family borders through war and law.

A few thousand days from now – sooner, I hope – we will realise we all come from the same planet. Killing them is killing us. Hating you is hating me. We need each other because we are each other.

We are family.

Teaching Self-Control

If you are anything like me, you’ve had moments with your kids when frustration turns anger and words fly out of your mouth that you never meant to say. I’ve spent a bit of time (they are teenagers now) observing myself and researching what causes such outbursts.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about being a good parent. Let me warn you, it isn’t comfortable to hear. But, knowing these things and taking them seriously has helped me heaps!

In order to raise great kids, they need a solid foundation of self-control. Here are four facts to help build a self-control centre in ourselves and our children:

1. Parents, we are in charge.
2. When we ‘loose it,’ the thing we have lost is self-control.
3. Like us, our kids shine when they take charge of themselves.
4. Ultimately, the mature person has consistent self-control.

When we get angry with the kids, it is because we feel we have lost control of them. Little Lady throws a tantrum in the shops. Sir Serious asks “Why?” for the 150th time in three minutes. Mr Muscles tries to rip his sister’s hair out, again. The three angels leave a trail of madness and mayhem through the house. Before flipping your lid, pause and review the ‘self-control’ centre. When the kids are out of control, they are not out of OUR control, they are out of THEIR OWN control. Getting that clear in your mind releases you from taking offence.

They are acting ‘against’ who they are; not who you are!

As a parent, whether you realise it or not, you are on a different level to the kids. Not only are you bigger and older, you are the boss. The kids are the followers. They know you are in charge of what happens at home. Until they understand the boundaries, they will test them. We teach our kids (and learn along the way, ourselves) that “The only person who can control you is YOU!”

The best way to teach this is to model it. By taking ownership of our emotions we can realise, “Wow, I’m really upset about this!” Then we can choose to direct the fight/flight reaction caused by the stress into positive action – doing dishes, mowing the lawn, going for a walk. As we get better at moving from reaction into action, our kids will too. They learn from watching us.

Then we can talk about it; teaching our kids to ask, “What name does this feeling have?” “Why am I feeling it?” “What can I do instead?” “What can I do to make things right?” and finally, “What can I do next time this feeling comes?”

We learn the most difficult skills in life by watching others and then practicing it on our own. Self-control is one of these skills. To master it, it helps to see it mastered by someone around us. As adults, we need to model it. Stop blaming others for our loss of self-control and start taking charge of ourselves. The better we get at self-control, the better start in life we give our kids!

Resilient Questions

Long-term learning happens in positive situations. Success is sticky and draws us back for more. Failure scares us away. We shrink from failure and we grow from success.

Growing up is all about making mistakes and learning from them for next time. But, to help our kids learn quickly and effectively, we need to change those negatives into positives as quickly as possible. Using questions is a great way.

With toddlers and early primary school students, mistakes often come in two areas: Time and Place. Helping them realise this is the wrong time or place for a particular activity gives them the understanding to choose when and where to do it next time. Using positive questions to deal with wrong actions allows children to understand what it is they are doing wrong and why.

Positive question sets (three examples):

“Is this the right place to be drawing with crayons?”

“Where is the right place?”
“Before we go to that place, how will you clean this?”

“Is this the right time to be eating cake?”
“When is the right time?”
“If you are hungry, what is ok to eat right now?”

“Is this the right time or place to be tackling people?”
“When and where is rough play ok?”
“What could you do with your energy now?”

Each one of these examples takes the child from the negative behaviour to positive behaviour while also giving them questions to think through their actions. Next time, they will have some tools to use in considering whether they should draw on the walls, eat cake for breakfast or tackle their sibling on the way into the school grounds.

We create resilient kids by teaching them positive questions to use in reviewing mistakes and planning for success next time.

The Mud Puddle

Life is like a “choose your own adventure” book. At the end of each event you get to choose where the story goes next.

Elly and Jane got to school early and were the only two kids on the playground. Elly slipped and fell in a mud puddle. Jane ran over, jumped in the puddle, laughed and said, “You look better now than before!” Then she ran away laughing.

Option 1: As Elly was brushing herself off, the bus arrived. Rose, May and Sarah asked Elly what had happened. Elly told them about Jane. If you want to see what happens next, turn to page 12.

Option 2: Elly stood up and brushed herself off. She saw the bus pulling in and went to meet her friends. Rose, May and Sarah said, “Elly, you’re covered in mud! What happened?” Elly said she fell in a puddle and needed to go to the bathroom to clean up. Her friends said they would come with her. If you want to see what happens next, turn to page 26.

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Page 12 – Rose, May and Sarah were angry. They told Elly some things that Jane had done to them in the past. They all decided that it was time for Jane to pay for her bullying. They came up with a plan to embarrass Jane…

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Page 26 – At recess, Elly found Jane in a corner of the playground. Elly explained how sad it made her that Jane didn’t help her up when she fell down. Elly said, “Jane, the things you said and did made me sad. I want you to be my friend.” Jane looked at the ground and said, “Yeah. I’m sorry, Elly. I did the wrong thing.” The two returned to the playground together…

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We all can write the next part of both stories because we’ve seen them. One leads to healthy friendships, the other leads to more hateful words and actions that go on and on. The best option is to talk to the person who hurt us, tell them what hurt and that we want to be their friend. It’s not always the easiest way, but it is the best way.

As kids, you also have teachers, parents and chaplains to help. You can ask a grown up what you should do and they will help you turn to page 26!

The Little Things

When Sully left home the morning of January 15, 2009 he had no idea he would be a hero by the end of the day. To him, as a pilot flying from one US city to another, he was just going to another day at work.

But when a flock of geese flew into the engines – both engines – of his Airbus A320, there was no choice but to crash land. He could choose where, but the plane was coming down – and quickly. Would he choose an airport a few miles away? No, too far. Would he choose the freeway and hope not to hit too many cars? No, too dangerous.

Sully steered the giant plane toward the Hudson River and planned his descent. The damaged engines would need to get the plane to the right speed and then be turned off. Then he would need to glide it in, powerless, and hit the water just right so the plane didn’t flip end over end or tear apart wing from wing. He needed to skim the plane across the river’s surface like a boy skipping a rock on a pond.

But before that, he had to bank into a long left turn lining up the river in the direction it was flowing, the auto pilot had to be turned off, the plane had to be levelled perfectly, the nose lifted just right, the vents and valves had to be sealed to stop water coming in – all with only emergency generator power and battery operated systems.

As a pilot and gliding instructor, Sully flew planes and taught others to do so every day. But today, there was no room for even the slightest mistake.

A few tense minutes later, Sully slid down the emergency slide to join the crew and passengers in one of the life rafts. The landing went perfectly, everyone survived –with an amazing story to tell.

Could you have done that? Yes, if you had the thousands and thousands of hours of training, practice and experience – and the calm confidence those hours brought Sully.

The greatest things in life are accomplished through the virtue and character developed by little things done over and over when they don’t seem to matter. One day, piled on top of each other, those little things create a mountain of potential that can do the impossible!