In my own parenting, I wanted my kids to face some adversity to get stronger by working through it, while simultaneously trying not to be the adversity that they're working through. It's always tough, because you're never not being evaluated, even if sometimes you get a 1 star review as a parent for getting upset that homework wasn't done.
Still, putting your kids in a position to succeed without doing it for them or having it come too easy is really the best way to have continued growth or improvement.
During this trip, I was on the floor with my grandson, and he was playing with an empty water bottle, which evidently is one of his favorite toys (and I already got him a bike, so whatever). He was on his tummy, and his mom had put that bottle just beyond his outstretched hand, so he was working at getting it. He'd reeeeeaaaacchh, and not quite get it. He'd reload, and you could hear him breathing harder and trying with grunts and sounds that were obvious to the effort, even if you couldn't see him.
He couldn't get there most of the time by just reaching, so he'd have to scoot. Essentially, the first steps to crawling. He'd lurch just a bit, and then he'd get it and that happiness was no different than cake and ice cream for dinner. He'd play a bit, and then we'd put the bottle out in front of him again, and because he got it once, he'd continue trying until he got it, gradually putting a tiny bit of crawling together. He is mobile! Once in a while, we'd make it too challenging, and he'd get discouraged and move on to something else, like putting his foot in his mouth.
What I loved is that as long as he could feel it was possible, he'd work at it. And in the process, he's getting more mobile and learning that if you work at it, you'll eventually get it.
That's the 8 month old level of dealing with some adversity and coming out better because of it.
My oldest had a similar challenge when he was 4 years old. On our street at the time, there were some kids who ranged from 1 to 3 years older, and they were basically turds from what I could see and hear. They would break things for the sake of breaking things, they'd yell "NO" when a parent told them to come in and run away down the street. Though they never connected, they'd threw things at my oldest when he'd ride his bike across the front of their houses on the sidewalk. Eventually this turned into chasing him.
He'd increasingly get scared and come running into the house, slamming the door. We'd talk about it, but most of my talks were, "You have to decide if you like riding enough to deal with them, or you just stop riding, or you go make them stop." Mostly, since I worked from home, I just wanted to stop hearing that door slam.
"How do I make them stop," he asked.
It wasn't my proudest moment as a parent, but it was one of my proudest moments of him- he went back outside and faced them. I couldn't hear everything that was being said, but the short of it was that he faced those kids, did a bit of hand to hand combat (I was only across the street and watching intently), and dealt with a kid spraying a hose in his face while fending off two others...and eventually, three of the kids just stopped. They weren't "winning," and after all of that shouting that they were going to get him and beat him up, they just didn't. It didn't happen.
One of the kids went into a garage and came out with a shovel. He took a swing with it, missed my kid (while I'm running across the street to intervene), and then my kid took the shovel away.
At this point, one of the moms came out, yelled at the kids, told them to leave my kid alone, and that he was the nicest kids on the street, and made them come inside. She grabbed one by the neck and another by the arm (I assume that they were her two), and took them inside. My kid followed them to the door and handed the mom the shovel.
One of the others already befriended my kid, and was wiping dirt off of his shirt, and the 4th ran home crying.
That was some adversity, and whatever my oldest feared, that worst didn't actually happen. We never had an issue of him running in the house scared again.
When my middle child, my daughter, was about 7 years old, she developed a fear of crashing on her bike. It got to the point that she was riding so slowly out of fear, that crashing was more about falling over due to low speed, but it was still a crash and happening often.
It was also about this time that she'd entered a kid's triathlon. It was around a 250y swim, 4-5 mile bike, and a 1.5 mile run. She got through the swim and went out on the bike, and when it passed the time that she should have been back, I started to get concerned that she'd had a fall on the bike.
She did.
And instead of finishing, she just stopped. I'm not even sure how she got back to the transition/finish area, but there was a call over the PA that she was at the medical tent, so that's where I ran.
She wasn't hurt. I mean, there were a couple of abrasions, but no injury to speak of.
We packed it all up and went home, but on that car ride home, we talked about that it was actually impressive that she attempted a triathlon with that fear of crashing. I was proud of her for trying, but I also knew she really could finish the triathlon, even with that tumble.
But how do you convey that as facing adversity, when you're asking them to face their fears, when those fears come with being physically hurt to some degree?
When we got home, we did a homemade triathlon together. Didn't even wash off from the earlier attempt. We did the swim together in our pool. It took quite a few laps, because it wasn't that big of a pool, and then we went out on the bike. "We" talked while riding. I'd actually forgotten what her age group distance was for the bike leg, so we just did a 8 mile ride, because I remembered that was on the registration sheet (for an older age group).
At no point in that 8 miles did she stop talking, so I'm reasonably sure she wasn't scared of crashing.
Then we did the run, and that was that. She was (and is) a triathlete, and she navigated the bike leg without crashing.
I recorded a video afterwards, which may be buried in this blog somewhere, and she talked about the challenges and successes of the day. And to this day, it is one of my favorite moments of her, and I was there to see it all first hand.
Like sending the oldest out to face the hoodlums on the street, maybe it wasn't great parenting to send someone out on the open road on the bike hours after crashing on open roads. But that triathlon was my favorite I've ever done, and that beaming, proud girl afterwards was someone who was really feeling that facing adversity and overcoming it is so empowered.
She was also too afraid to ride a roller coaster for a few years. We'd get in line at Fiesta Texas, and just as we approached our turn, she'd back out, and we'd have to leave her there. Leaving a 6 or 7 year old by herself at a huge amusement park while we took a lap on a roller coaster is for sure sketchy parenting at best, but she was always where we left her when we got off, so we didn't lose any points on the scoreboard. But my daughter-in-law probably won't now let me take my grandson to an amusement park if she reads this.
Near the end of one outing at Fiesta Texas, and I still don't know what changed, but she said she'd ride it. Once.
And she did, and she loved it. She loved it so much, that she got right back in line, and we did it again. Not only that, but there were also so few people at the park that we didn't even have to wait. We were on the next ride right away.
And then we did it again.
And again.
I love(d) roller coasters. There wasn't one I wouldn't ride, but something happened when her switch was flipped, because we rode that thing so many times in a row that I was getting motion sickness in a bad way.
And now I can't ride roller coasters anymore, and she can.
Worth it.
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