Mummy you are being unfair to me; you could have just helped me out rather than watching me fail and having to start all over again!
Imagine such a statement coming from my 7-year-old son. Well, yes, I saw him struggling, I wanted to intervene but again how would he learn these three important life lessons: Perseverance, Tenacity and Hope? If I’m always rushing to fix the problem for him, then I’m doing him a major disservice. We don’t always get what we want at first try, sometimes, life requires us to push a tad harder. Without struggle, there isn’t a success. The earlier you teach this to your kids, the better for them.
If you have not started already, these are three important life lessons to start infusing in your kids as soon as possible
1. Perseverance
Find a simpler way to teach your kids the act of persevering. If I were you, I would start using this word around my home often ‘Persistence is key’. If your kids are as curious as mine, they would one day ask what it means if they have never heard it before. Trust me, gradually it becomes part of their everyday lexicon and each time they ever consider giving up, you remind them ‘Persistence is key’.
2. Tenacity
When you play games with them, let them lose and try all over again until they can win. When they are given an exercise from school, resist the urge to help. In doing this, we teach them how to learn an idea or concept firmly and apply. Working hard despite disappointment or failure is what eventually births success.
3. Hope
I stumbled on this quote online ‘Hope is a function of struggle’. Truly, it is in struggle that we learn to hope. If we always obey the guts as parents to fix every problem for our kids, we prevent them from making mistakes, experiencing disappointment as well as hindering them from understanding the fact that when you fail, you can try again and succeed.
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