As the meltdown starts to lead towards the child throwing a tantrum, the teacher pauses the class and give the child additional attention. The conversation pulls the child’s attention and draws out their curiosity. By the time the short pep talk is done, the child feels motivated, encouraged, and optimistic. They give it a few more attempts and surprise themselves in discovering they can do the move that once eluded them.
The elation is palpable. They’ve overcame the challenge. They’re excited to tell everyone about their new victory. Most parents at some point in time ran into this type of experience. It could have been teaching the child to potty on their own or ride a bike on their own or complete a homework assignment.
Let’s take a slightly closer look at what is taking place for these children in those precious moments. These are teaching moments that can last a life time.
A Model of a Resilient Home
The teacher took the time to not only acknowledge the child’s feelings, but directed the child’s attention to a bigger picture. The way one approaches life in general uses the same principles that they needed in that moment to overcome the challenge. Grit and resilience is a set of skills that must be cultivate for best use.
With practice, guidance, patience, stamina, and skills, one can recover from many adversities in sports as well as life. Gaining a mastery of emotions and understanding how to channel energy is of high premium these days.
Just look at the way these testing systems are in school or how the path towards a great career functions. Those who can’t manage their feelings and keep a long term goal in sight will find themselves running shorter than they’d like. Resilience, therefore, is a worthy skill to have.
Resilience and gratitude
One of the passages my parents used to say a lot comes from the Bible. “All things work together for the good of those who love God” Romans 8:28
At first, this lesson was hard to swallow. How can bad things work for my good. How can life be fair if I have to suffer. It wasn’t until later that I seized the value of the quote. The mindset that goes into the passage is they key to winning in life.
Knowing, through faith, that there is a valuable reason for experiencing the life we’re experiencing means we can be grateful in all situations. Once you’re able to find gratitude in all that you have, you’re able to find the upside to everything and work towards the end goal you wanted.
A setback is not really a problem. It’s just a lesson in what doesn’t work and pushes a person to find what does. The appearance of failure is just another lesson in what isn’t’ working for you so you don’t repeat that in the future.
Another person put it this way… life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. It is easier to get up and face a tough day knowing that it’s actually designed to help you win instead of wear you out. That slight little change in perspective makes all the difference in motivational levels, energy levels, and willingness to push on through.
Teaching children at a young age to have a victorious mindset allows them to go out and try harder than a defeated mindset. When a child thinks they’re going to lose, chances are good that they will take setbacks as losses and give up more easily.
Babies will eventually learn to walk. They just know and trust that one day they will walk. But, if the mindset of defeat starts to take hold in such a child… the optimistic lessons from learning to walk won’t carry over to other attempts in life.
In other words… children will learn from their adult parents to have a defeated mindset instead of a victorious mindset. This of course is skipping over dispositions and personalities. I’ve seen cases in which a child is too afraid to try anything new and will quote their parent by saying… “my parents told me not to try, because I may fail…get hurt…or make them look bad… etc”
The opposite is true as well. Parents can reinforce a curious nature, and adventurous lean, a curious winning mindset. There are children who will tell you… “my parents told me I can be anything, so I’m going to try this and find out”. Makes you feel warm inside hearing their confidence because you know they’ll go far in life it they keep that mindset alive.
As CEOs of the home, it is our duty to instill the curiosity mindset and the winning mindset through encouraging resilience and gratitude.
Why gratitude in all of this? Nothing boosts confidence like “I’m so glad I got this opportunity to learn this valuable lesson today”. It feels great to know your efforts are bringing you closer to your dreams. Gratitude, in a way, fuels the inner strength needed to keep pushing through challenges because it’s viewing the challenge as a good thing.
One more thing, the attitude of gratitude is the expectation of finding something to be grateful for in all situations. Then, once found, being grateful for the experience. Positively associated feeling with an experience strengthens the value of the experience… as far as the mind is concerned.
