Future-Proofing your Kids

Pause: Think about this question for 30 seconds before continuing. 

How is empowerment different from encouragement? 

Pulling the words apart is a great way to understand en-courage-ment and em-power-ment. We develop courage in our children when we encourage them. We develop personal power in our children when we empower them.

Courage comes from doing something well and knowing we can do it again. Sometimes we know we did a good job. Sometimes we need someone to tell us. Encouragement is when we tell others we have seen what they have done and we believe they did a great job. An encouraging parent says, based on what we know of our child, we believe they can do this – even if it is harder or different than what they have done in the past. Our words and actions give our children courage.

Power comes from making choices and seeing the results of those choices. Decisions are always followed by consequences – good or bad. While we hope for positive results from our decisions, we learn from both positive and negative outcomes – if we think about it afterwards. Empowerment is when we allow others to make decisions that impact the future. A big part of being an empowering parent comes after our children make decisions and we ask good questions to help our child reflect and learn from the consequences of their choices. This gives them power to face tough choices and make wise decisions in the future. Allowing our children to choose their own words and actions gives them power.

Both encouragement and empowerment help us to become all that we can be. Hearing, “Well done!” and “You can do this!” build courage. Hearing, “What will you do next?” and “What have you learned?” develop personal power. The difficulties in the future will be easier to face if we have self-trusting courage and decision-making power. These skills come from being encouraged and empowered throughout childhood.

Are you more natural at encouraging or empowering your kids? Both are important and both build resilient kids. How will you encourage your kids today? How will you empower them for tomorrow?

"Are you Busy?"

We’ve all answered this question a thousand times. In our hectic world, it’s a badge of honour to say, “Yes, very busy!”

“Busy” tops my list of least favourite four-letter words. Five years ago, I nearly destroyed my marriage and family. As we recovered, I recognised I had to prioritise relationships as the most important thing in my life. To actually put my wife and children first wasn’t easy. It meant I had to leave my busyness mindset behind. I had to change my purpose and my focus.

Now, I want people to know I am available to them – never too busy to listen or care. Of course, there are times when I have things to do. But, relationships lead to happiness and resilience. I want to be available to myself and others– even when I’ve got things to do. Pop your head into my office and no matter how ‘busy’ I may be, I remind myself that relationships come first, mentally press pause on my to-do list and invite you to come in, sit and chat for a spell.

Like busyness, availability is a state of mind. It takes a serious brain-retrain in our rush-around world to choose to be available rather than busy. But, it is possible – and highly rewarding!

Seek to be in a state of availability to self and others. Being available to others means being attentive to their needs when they show us those needs – not when we get around to it. Being available to ourselves means having awareness of our own needs and being willing to address those needs as they arise. A lack of self-awareness leads to anger, disinterest and disengagement. A lack of attentiveness to others leads to selfishness, loneliness and fragmented relationships.

When asked if I’m busy, I quickly answer, “Nope. I’m never busy.” While it isn’t always true – the quick answer reminds me of who I want to be. Then, if I’m living it that day, I offer my availability and say, “How can I help?”

Growing Resilience

I talk about resilience a lot.

Every time my 17-year-old daughter hears the word resilience, she says, “There’s your word, Dad!” So, in a nutshell, here what I know about building resilience in ourselves and our children.

Resilience is built in Relationships
Relationships are shaped by Reconciliation
Reconciliation is the skill of making things right
by saying “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you”

It is much easier to say: “I’m sorry” and mean it than it is to say: “I forgive you” and mean it. And yet, without forgiveness, our world stops. A lack of forgiveness stops countries sharing resources, families sharing Christmas and partners sharing a bed. Being sorry people is natural. Being forgiving people is enlightened!

So, start by saying the words “I forgive you” more often. Squeeze them into as many conversations as possible. Let people know they are loved by embracing them with forgiveness. Welcome them home.

Alongside forgiveness, offer apologies more often. It’s much better to apologise and hear, “You don’t need to apologise!” than not to apologise and risk the other person harbouring a niggle that grows into hatred. Two families in a small town hadn’t spoken to each other for generations. When a new police chief was posted to the town, he couldn’t understand the hatred and searched for an explanation. He asked everyone, including the members of the two families and no one knew the reason. The same explanation came from both camps: “We never talk to them! Our families don’t mix! They are dishonest, hurtful, horrible people!” No one knew the reason, but everyone lived the hate.

Apologise early. Apologise often. It hurts no one. In fact, it makes you the bigger person because you are willing to own your actions and admit you make mistakes. Children struggle with both sides of forgiveness unless it is modelled to them regularly. Reconciliation is a constant choice of conscience.

Once you’ve put reconciliation into full swing, your relationships will become healthy, happy and numerous. People who treat others kindly have more friends. It’s like magic. Well, not really. Everyone loves being loved!

Friendships built on forgiveness and kindness turn into deeply trusting relationships. And that’s where resilience comes from. Social researchers say people who bounce back quickly from unexpected difficulties (resilient people) have at least five significant adult relationships. That’s five emotionally healthy adults you know you can trust to eat with you, listen to you and care for you.

Resilience is a team sport. We build it together as we do life together. Invest more in your relationships, practice reconciliation, and watch your resilience — and the resilience of your children — grow, grow, grow!

Teaching Compassion

This morning I asked a year six boy what he thought the most important value was for kids. He said, “Kindness.” I asked him what kindness means to him and he said it means to be kind to other kids and then they would be kind to you. He’s on to something!

Thousands of years ago, sages in every culture taught a maxim of compassion we call the Golden Rule. “Do to others what you would like them to do to you.” This is the core reason for compassion — a knowledge that what comes around goes around.

Share and someone will share with you.

Care and someone will care for you.

Hard-wired into our early brain development, kindness is much deeper than a self-serving survival strategy. Compassion — which literally means “to suffer together” — builds strong bonds, friendships and relationships. When we feel compassion, it changes us. Our heart rate slows. Our brain releases oxytocin — the bonding hormone — and the regions of the brain responsible for empathy, caregiving, and pleasure engage. In short, being kind makes us happy.

In a world which teaches us to put ourselves first, how do we as parents teach our children to care for the needs of others? Once we get them started in compassionate behaviour, their brain’s reward system should take over and encourage them to be kind again and again.

Here are a few ideas for giving compassion a kick-start in your children:

Model Compassion: Do acts of kindness in front of your children. When you see someone drop something, pick it up and give it to them with a kind word. Help out at school functions. Hold the door for others. Always give to buskers. Back off in traffic to allow other cars to merge. After you do these things, talk about them with your children. What you did will combine with why you did it to bring compassion alive in your child’s mind.

A Family Pet: Get a pet that requires consistent but simple care — like hermit crabs or a mouse. As a family, design a list of care requirements and keep it next to the pet’s cage. Talk about the care rules as you follow them each day. After a few weeks with the pet in a shared area, move the cage and care rules into your child’s room for a weekend.

Service Activities: Get involved in activities where your family can give back to the community. Help serve at a soup kitchen. Donate a couple of hours to a local opshop. Help at working bees. Donate supplies to Breaky Club.

Values are caught not taught. Give your children the best chance to have a values-rich life by modelling and discussing the values you believe will benefit them. Start by seeing, sharing and caring for the suffering around you — this is compassion.

A safe Australia is a values-centred Australia

Individual values shape family values. Family values shape community values. Community values shape cultural values. And cultural values shape the character of a nation. Australia is not the safe place it was a generation or two ago. Due to changes in cultural cohesion, community involvement and family structure; what it means to be Australian is shifting and in the process we are losing focus on our shared values. In short, we are no longer able to articulate what it means to be Australian.

Because values provide the foundational core of culture, The Australia Government is doing everything they can to help us find ourselves. This is why schools have values statements, buddy systems and peer mentoring for the students and programs like Real Schools for teachers and staff. It’s also why schools have chaplains, mentors, councillors and well-being officers.

US President Theodore Roosevelt said, “To educate a person in mind and not morals is to educate a menace to society.” A safe Australia is a values-centred Australia. We know this! Not only do values keep us safe, they play a key role in our happiness, wellbeing and success. But, where do they come from? How do we develop values?

Values are caught not taught. We develop our values by watching and participating with other people. Values transfer from one person to another through relational pathways. The stronger the relationship, the more likely we will embody the values lived out by the other person. For most children, parents are their primary relationships and thus the strongest source for their values. Significant family members are also relational values givers. Those we value most provide most of our values.

As a parent, if we want to raise children with holistic healthy values, we need to know our core values and live by them. To do this, we need to take our own values seriously. Sit down and make a list. What are my core values? Why do I have these values? How do I live by these values and how will I ensure I live by them in the future?

A list of commonly held values is a good place to start. Values specialist Michael Gurian suggests ten moral competencies all humans need: decency, fairness, empathy, self-sacrifice, responsibility, loyalty, duty, service, honesty and honour. Happiness guru Martin Seligman adds humility, self-control, love of learning, industriousness, leadership, caution and playfulness. Parenting experts Linda and Richard Eyre continue the list with courage, peaceability, self-reliance, dependability, respect, love, unselfishness and mercy.

An honest personal values list will have just a handful of values. Although more confronting, reverse engineering your list will give you the most honest results. Instead of picking your values from a list; look at the actions, activities and communities in which you are regularly involved. Why are you involved in these things? Your core-values will likely be at the heart of the reasons why you dedicate time and energy to these things.

Once you’ve generated your list, talk about it. Notice when one of your values is lived-out by one of your children and tell them what you’ve seen in them. Put a name to the actions you want to see. Celebrate your values in action!

One by one, both you and your child will become all you hope to be. And Australia will be better for it!

Parenting Value #1 - Reconciliation

I read an answer on Quora that made me pump my fist and say, “You tell ’em, champ!” The question was about a parent breaking an iPad because a child was addicted to a game. The parent wanted to know if breaking the iPad was overkill… Yeah, seriously.

Anyway, the answer this guy gave made me smile for a week. In short, he said his parents knew tech was the future and encouraged his gaming. They also ensured they spent lots of time doing activities as a family. Then he said, “If my parents would have broken my gaming system, I wouldn’t be working in tech today — where I make five times per year what my parents make combined.”

I’m tired of tech-bashing posts, articles and videos aimed at parents. The reason it bothers me so much is that it blames technology for family problems rather than challenging us to look in the mirror at the real problem. Technology is serving the role of both the babysitter and stable significant other for many kids. It’s not the child’s fault and it’s not tech’s fault. Kids are the victims of family angst. Tech is the fall-guy.

A lack of relationship skills is at fault. Primarily, the skill — or value — of reconciliation. We tell our kids to say sorry when they hurt someone and to forgive people when they apologise, but we often struggle to do this ourselves. Children do what we do, not what we say.

Values are caught not taught. I had a little guy in for a chat this week who I called a ‘silly monkey.’ He laughed and said, “That’s my nickname — Monkey!” And it reminded me of the three monkeys — one covering its eyes, one covering its ears, one covering its mouth. And it reminded me of my Mum shaking her head as I did another crazy thing because my friends did. “Monkey see, monkey do!” she said time and time again. We learn from watching, hearing and repeating what we see others do. We’re just like those silly monkeys!

Photo Credit

I have three kids that love their parents and each other. As a family, we regularly laugh together, play board games together, eat together and chat for hours. That said, they love their tech (as do I!) and have been tech-kids since they were in nappies. The oldest coordinated mouse-in-hand to cursor-on-screen when he was just two-years-old. He’s been at it since. Today he’s almost halfway through a Computer Science Degree in which he’s thriving. Boy two is in his first year of a Data Science Degree and thinks it’s awesome. He’s also a WOW legend! Our daughter, a budding florist, strengthens her skills by watching her favourite YouTubers and learns one creative thing after another from Pinterest, Instagram and other social media.

Dad (that’s me) has been a blogger for nearly two decades and a YouTuber (that’s what the kids at school call me! lol) for just over a decade. In just the past year, more than half-a-million people have read/listened to my content. Crazy, eh?

Tech isn’t the problem. It also isn’t the reason my kids are awesome. And, they are awesome!

They got a good start at being great people because their parents choose to suffer and succeed together. We fall. We get up. We apologise. We forgive. We mean it. We learn from our mistakes. We grow stronger. And we do these things privately, publicly and honestly — in front of our kids. They know what stupid mistakes look like. They know what huge belly laughs feel like. They apologise quickly. They forgive eagerly. They move on. Because they’ve seen it work. Loving and lovable people are good at forming and reforming relationships. Relationships are built on the ability to make things right — that’s reconciliation.

To whom do you need to apologise?

Whom do you need to forgive?

Do it. Regularly.

Let the monkeys see it and hear it — and soon they will say it too.

Resilience Reservoirs are Filled by Sharing Your Story-Well

Stories from the story-well of your own life and the lives of others fill your resilience reservoir. The stories you pour into your children’s story-well will be drawn from for the rest of their lives.

Here are four categories of stories about yourself that are guaranteed to help your kids:

Success Stories — Your achievements from childhood, teenage years and adulthood.

Failure Stories — Things you tried, failed and learned from.

Unexpected Surprises — Unplanned things that shaped you. People. Events.

Unexpected Crises — Unfortunate events that shaped you. Accidents. Illness. Loss.

Along with these stories, make sure to include how that event shaped you for better or worse. Stories of both wins and losses are important. They show our kids that real people have real lives, just like them.

Next, expand the circle of influence to include your parents and siblings (your kid’s grandparents, aunts and uncles) and tell the same four kinds of stories from their lives. Better even, ask your extended family to tell the stories from their own perspective. You may want to prepare some key questions based on stories you know your parents and siblings are willing to tell. Prompt them for their stories with a few of your memories.

All the life-stories your children hear flow into their story-well and fill their resilience reservoir. Emotional strength comes from these stories being available when we need them.

Ask your kids to tell their stories, too. Help them to develop positive lessons from the many stories in their lives.

A deep story-well leads to a life of strength, love and joy.

Resilience = Five Significant Adults

Resilience research shows that children develop resilience best when they have a full handful of adults who regularly provide them with emotional support. Each significant adult is someone who can be trusted by the child for mentoring, training and answers to life’s questions. They are adult storytellers in the life of your children.  

In tough times, the greater the variety of adults, children have someone to trust for counsel. Providing your children with a variety of adults – from different walks of life – gives them a wider spectrum of life experience to choose from when seeking a mentor.

Typical significant adults include parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, chaplains, school staff, coaches, club leaders, church leaders, neighbours, extended family and any other regular adults in your children’s lives. 

The Best Way to Build Resilience in Your Children

Resilience is the ability to bounce back after a setback.

Some setbacks can be overcome easily, others take time. Why do some people bounce back quickly from an unexpected setback while others seem to get swallowed up?

Heaps of research has been done on what builds resilience. In short, the answer is - the more experience, the more resilience. But here's where things get interesting. It doesn't need to be your own experience. The people around you grow your resilience if you know their stories.

Amazingly, our brains do the same thing with stories we are told as they do with our own experiences. First, we receive the story. Then, we interpret the story. Finally, the interpreted story is stored with hundreds of emotional tags - good, bad, funny, angry, success, failure, happy, sad, lesson learned, random occurrence, etc.

Experience. Relationships. Stories. These three things combine to provide numerous memories of hitting bottom and getting back up. Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. Resilience comes when a person encounters a setback and digs back in their memory - into their story satchel: "Is there a story that relates to this setback?" Our subconscious scans through the tags and says, "Aha! This is like that!" And we begin to make sense of this new struggle. Or, a storyless subconscious sends back, "Nope. Nothing to work with. This is a new low." This is when resilience is hardest.

As parents, it is important to tell stories of both successes and failures. When we share success stories, the point is implied: "I tried, I won!" When we tell struggle stories, the point (resilience) is made in the way we tell the story. It gives little hope to a child to hear, "I failed high school Maths because it was too hard." A resilient telling of the same occasion could be, "I failed high school maths because I was still learning. I had to get some help and practice lots. But then, when the next exam came, I was ready for it!" Or, in my case, I shift the focus (because maths and my brain are from different planets) and say, "Maths is really hard for me. But I love to write. When I was in high school, I did my best on the maths classes I had to take but I took lots of extra English classes because I love writing. I was even the yearbook editor in year 12!"

The important thing is to tell lots of stories. Failure is important. It shows our kids they can make it because we did. Kids who believe their parents are perfect believe their parents expect perfection from them.

Life is not about perfection, it's about connection. Build resilience in your children by blanketing them in story.

Significant Adults: Surround your children with well-storied people. Explain your goal to build resilient kids to these significant adults. Ask them to share stories with your children. Thank them for helping!

Storytelling Parents: Tell your children stories of your own. Your setbacks, struggles and successes will empower them to make wise decisions and to bounce back from whatever life throws at them.

Resilient Kids: Finally challenge your kids to build stories of their own. Overcoming small setbacks gets us ready to overcome big ones later in life.

The best way to build resilience in your kids? Surround them with stories. Their own, yours and the stories of people they love.

change your habits without obsessing about them

Forming Healthy Habits

You can change your habits without obsessing about them by focusing on your environment and rituals. Let me explain.

Habits

Life is all about habits. Both success and failure are formed by our habits. Repetition is the primary way we learn. We become the things we do repetitively — these are our habits.

Growth: We build habits to achieve goals. This is how we get better at anything — try, try, try again. The more we practise, the more our success. How many times has your favourite AFL player kicked a footy? hundreds of thousands of times, no doubt. Likewise: catching, bouncing, passing and running. That’s why they are professionals!

Stagnation: We also form habits of ease or comfort. They make us feel safe. If it makes me happy, I do it. If it relaxes me, I do it. If I do it repeatedly, a habit forms and can be hard to change. Selfish habits can lead to poor relationships or poor health.

Environment

The easiest way to change a bad habit is to form a new one to replace it.

The easiest way to form a new habit is to change your environment.

Take Footy/Xbox for example: If you want to spend more time practising footy skills, spend more time on an oval with friends and a ball. It’s hard to play Xbox or watch TV on an oval. So, spending more time on an oval changes two habits — replacing one with the other — by changing the environment.

Rituals

Another way to successfully change a habit is to combine it with a ritual you enjoy. Time with a friend/partner/child. A trip to the shops. Going out for coffee. Driving.

Use your rituals to build better habits:

What more exercise? Park further from the shops — or walk from home.

Want to read more? Take a book to a coffee house and switch your phone off.

Want to learn something new? Listen to an audiobook while driving.

Want to run/walk regularly? Ask your friend/partner/child to join you.

Change

Mythologist Joseph Campbell is best known for his statement: ‘follow your bliss’ — an invitation taken to heart by many young people seeking life’s purpose. Near the end of his life, Campbell quipped, ‘I wish I’d said follow your blisters.’ He’d learned, as we all do, that our time-worn habits are what shape our greatest attributes.

Most people hate changing habits. Focusing on the habit itself can be overwhelming and disheartening. But, choosing our environment and strengthening our rituals can be fun and will cause habits to fall into place without hardly thinking about them.

Resilience Research Workbook - Free PDF

Resilience studies have shown that the resilience of a child (of any person, actually) can be readily demonstrated through two indicators.

1. How well they know their story and stories about their family

2. How many significant adults they participate with regularly

This booklet combines the 20 questions researchers ask kids to assess their family knowledge and a list of five significant adults and why they are significant. 

When I give this booklet to a student, we spend the session filling in all the answers they know personally. I watch carefully, asking questions as we go along, and at the end of this session I have a strong assessment of their resilience. So far, I have found it to be very accurate to my previous assessment of the student. 

I then send the workbook home with the child to complete with help from their family. This gets the family talking and, in time, will raise the wellbeing and resilience of the child.

The booklet is formatted to print double-sided and fold in half. Please print and use this booklet as you see fit. 

Please feel free to share booklet. In the future, send me an email and let me know how it has helped the children in your life.

Resilience Research Workbook

Free Workbook PDF - USA Spelling

Resilience Research Workbook

This one is the British / Australian version

Brave Kwame - Free Children's eBook

This amazing true refugee story teaches the power of including others and telling our story!

Free eBook

Enjoy!

And share!

Jimmy and the Black Spot - Free Children's eBook

I wrote this children's book to encourage us all to see the needs of others.

Enjoy this free eBook

So far, no publisher has taken me up on this story.

If you are a publisher who'd like to see it illustrated and published, please email me!

Free children's eBook - The Forgotten Path

I wrote this children's book to encourage respect for the elderly.

Enjoy this free eBook of an adventurous story with an important message!

So far, no publisher has taken me up on this story.

If you are a publisher who'd like to see it illustrated and published, please email me! 

2 Words + 3 Words = 1 Word

     ~ the secret to happiness ~ 

Last week I chatted with two girls – best friends.

I asked them: “What’s the next big thing coming up that you’re excited about?” This is one of my favourite questions. It always unlocks a world of stories and potential mentoring topics.

One girl started, “Camping! We always go camping at Easter.”

“Cool,” I said, “Who is going with you?”

“Everyone! My family. My cousins. My grandparents.” Then she turned to look at the other girl. “And my best friend!”

“Wow!” I said to the other girl, “You get to go camping with her family! That’s cool.”

“Not just me!” She said, “My family comes, too. We do it every year.”

“That sounds like fun!” I laughed. “Do you go camping often?”

They both nodded their heads. 

Then the first girl’s eyes teared up. “But you know what?”

I saw something big coming. I leaned forward and focused on her eyes. “What?”

“Sometimes, my parents leave me with my grandparents,” her voice was a shaky whisper as she confessed, “and they go on holiday without me.”

“By themselves?” I said quietly.

She nodded.

“That’s AWESOME!” I nearly shouted, throwing my hands up in the air. “Do you know what that means?”

Scowling at my joy, she said, “What?”

“They love each other!” I clasped my hands together. “Am I right?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “They always say that.”

“And they are proving it, by spending time together.” I said, “They are keeping their love alive and keeping your family strong by going away together. You are one lucky girl!”

“I am?” She looked happier, hopeful even.

“Yes, you are!” I leaned back in my chair. “You both are.”

“Your parents know the secret to happiness!” I cupped my hands together like they held a surprise. “Do you want to know the secret?” I peeked in my hands. “I have it here in my hands.”

“Yes,” they both said, excited.

“Repeat after me,” I said as I lifted my cupped hands up to my ear and paused to listen.

“I’m sorry!” I said.

“I’m sorry!” They both repeated.

My hands shook like there was something trying to get out. “Oh, there’s more to the secret!” I held it up to my ear.

I smiled. “I forgive you!”

“I forgive you!” They laughed, repeating me.

“Those five little words are the secret to happiness.” I said, “Your parents obviously know them well. I’m guessing they taught those words to you, already.”

Both girls nodded.

“You are the luckiest girls in the whole school.”

“We are?”

“Yup.”

Time for Self-Care

Self-care is choosing to actively spend time maintaining your overall health and happiness. Taking care of yourself leads to holistic healthiness – body, mind, social and spiritual wellbeing.

Daily Time: Find daily time for yourself. Start small. One nurturing activity each day will lead to beneficial long-term results.

Weekly Time: Switch off the technology and spend time with your family for an entire day each weekend. A day disconnected from work each week greatly benefits the health and well-being of both you and your family.

Group Time: Join a club that meets regularly. Spending time with peers doing something you love will increase your friendships which is proven to add years to your life!

Annual Time: A yearly holiday away from home, work, school and all the other responsibilities of everyday life is important for both you and your family. It doesn’t need to be expensive or distant, just get away and spend time having fun with those you love.

A happier healthier you improves relationships with family, friends and workmates.

Self-Calming Techniques

We all get overwhelmed. We could be angry, frustrated, anxious, tired or even hungry. Here are some simple strategies to help regain your calm. Learn them and teach them to your children.

1. Breathe. Fill your lungs as deeply as you can. Breathe out slowly.

2. Listen. Think/talk about three things you can hear in your environment. 

3. Look. Name five things you see around you. 

4. Draw. Doodle on a piece of paper for a few minutes.

5. Release. Make a tight fist, then release it.

6. Count. Slowly count to ten. 

7. Imagine. Take a mental holiday. Imagine every detail.

Some self-calming techniques will work better than others. Try each with your child. Talk about how each one affects you. Not only will you learn some better self-awareness and self-calming skills, you’ll get to know each other better.

One Secret of Success

This morning before taking my boys to the train for their first day of University for 2018, I learned a valuable lesson about success.

I said to the oldest, “Thanks for not telling me the torch was all the heat I needed to make it through the mountains!”

He laughed. “Well, I didn’t know that. I did a quest for the old man and got some warm clothes. That’s how I survived the cold.”

“Well,” I said, “Now I’m stuck. How do I get across the river?”

“There’s a bridge!” he laughed.

“Yes,” I said, “but there is a gap. I can’t get on the bridge.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “You’ve got to use your magnet and put the metal door across the gap.”

“Ah…” I said, “of course.”

“Actually,” he continued, “there’s a boat a little further up the river, too.”

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, there’s often more than one way to solve the puzzles. That’s why Zelda is so easy.”

“I see,” I said. “Thanks for that, I feel much better now!”

We can all benefit from the lesson my son taught me. Success isn’t about perfection, it’s about progress. How your child accomplished a task may be different than how you did it, in your day. And that’s OK. In fact, it’s more than OK. It’s AWESOME!

Setting goals, overcoming roadblocks, achieving small victories are all part of being successful. Success isn’t about being perfect, it’s about moving one step further on your quest. It is achieved one step at a time. Success is about progress not perfection.