Challenging Change

Sep 042012
 

Some people are constitutionally more comfortable with risk and change than others. That’s true no matter what age group we’re dealing with.

Sometimes our children don’t want to try things new things because they feel self-conscious about the awkwardness and clumsiness they might experience when starting out. They just don’t want to face that “conscious incompetence” phase that goes along with acquiring most new skills.

Tumbling

Tumbling (Photo credit: Clover_1)

Here’s a question that can help break through the reluctance:  “What’s the worst things that could happen?”

First you ask.  Eventually they learn to ask themselves.

It’s a question that isn’t going to push them to be reckless… it simply helps to open the door to a new idea.  It helps sets the stage for believing that fumbles and stumbles can be nothing more than steps to learning and mastery.

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The Other Side of the Risk Equation

May 142010
 

Thank you Lenore Skenazy (author of Free Range Kids) for posting this.  Since I couldn’t say it better, I’m sure not going to try.  Here, instead, are some previous posts on the topic.

Teaching our children how to accurately assess and manage risk is an important part of preparing them to function as adults.  What strategies do you use to answer the ‘risk v. reward’ questions, either in your own life or on behalf of your kids?

The Rewards of Teaching Risk

Tsk-tsk.  Risk.

Teaching Risk Management: Child’s Play?

Teaching Safety or Teaching Fear?

The Rewards of Teaching Risk

May 102010
 

Often when I pass along headlines it’s because I am blown away by what some parents have been taught to think about what is helpful to a child.  These have been things like serving detention for them, teaching them to be fearful or what happens when bicycles and potholes meet.

But anything that can add to the overall hope and happiness that folks experience on Monday morning is irresistible.  Thank you Gisele Grayson for the opportunity to pass on your  NPR article about Teaching Kids to Take Healthy Risks.

In case you don’t have time to read it all right now here are some important points:

1) Risk-taking is normal and necessary.  It’s how we learn to assess and take risks. Whether physical, financial, creative or another type, risk is something that will be a factor in our lives whether we want it to be or not.

2) This type of behavior is not about the parent! I’d like to be glib and say ‘enough said,’ however I have yet to find a way to be quiet when I have the opportunity to say that as the grown-ups in the equation we need to learn to separate OUR needs from our kids’ needs when making parental decisions.  Sometimes doing what is right for our kids doesn’t not feel good.

3) Feeling the need to fit in can increase poor judgment.  While this part of the article was about driving and graduated licenses, I couldn’t help thinking about some recent articles about bullying.  Sure, everyone wants to fit in somewhere and some of the time, but young people who are confident about their own worth are less willing to damage themselves in order to have ‘friends.’  Kids who have been given the opportunity to bounce back learn that they can bounce back again and again.

4) Kids emulate parents’ style. Turn the magnifying glass around?  Assess, recognize and assess our own shortcomings first???  Be still my heart.

5) Learning comes from balance of education and experience; through conversation not lecture……

What if it really is true that we can provide our children tools with which to think about a wide variety of situations rather than micromanaging their every move?  What if the same thinking that helped protect them from bullying could keep them safer on the highway?

What if  we can, in fact, prepare them for life as good grown-ups?

*points from original article paraphrased and italicized to separate my comments