Figure It Out. But, Let Me Help You

Grit is all the rage these days. I love grit, I’m a big fan. I think it’s a tremendous life skill. I think it’s important that adults and kids alike work on making themselves gritty. The power to persevere in the face of adversity is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. At the same time, you want your child to feel loved and confident and self-assured. It’s all very confusing and probably just one of the reasons that leads mothers to the wine section at Costco, but I digress. So, short of dropping them in a desert for a week without an iPhone (audible gasp!), how do you make your kids tough?

Clearly, tiny children require lots of specialized attention. They are reliant on you for everything: food, clothing, bathing, diaper changes—you get it. As they get older, they become gradually more independent. Feeding themselves, dressing themselves, no longer requiring a diaper—hallelujah! Letting them grow and take things on themselves at this little age seems natural—they even have “milestones” that you can measure. These will either make you feel great about your skills as a parent or send you into an immediate panic/shame spiral that your child will end up going to college without being potty trained (FYI—this doesn’t really happen, but, I get that in your mom-of-a-toddler brain it seems feasible—no judgement here, this is a safe space). Early childhood milestones require your involvement and are somewhat logical—you sort of know when it’s time to let go and let them do it on their own.

Enter next stage parenting. Once your child is about school age it’s like the wild west. There is no rhyme or reason or even good guide books that help you determine when you need to step back so your child can step up. It’s made more difficult because kids these days (I feel about 1,000 years old writing that!) are exposed to so much more. Thus, they seem to “mature” at a faster clip, even though they’re the furthest thing from it.

So, how do you know when they should start doing chores on their own? Be responsible for money? Walk to the park alone? Have a phone? A social media account? Get dropped off at the movies or the mall? See? This is where that wine section comes in handy!

The unfortunate or fortunate truth (depending on the day and the child) is that kids grow up and it’s our job to help them transform into young adults. It’s our job to foster their value system, their decision-making ability and their resilience.   We do our best to instill all of these things as they mature so that as they forge ahead in the big, wide world they’ve got a fighting chance to become the best versions of themselves. But, how, exactly do we give them the tools they need to be adults? I’m not sure most of the adults I know (myself included) have the tools they need to be adults!

I’ve been focusing a lot on the resilience piece. From where I sit, in the middle of adulthood, this one is a game changer. Truly successful people are able to roll with the punches, pick themselves back up when they’ve “failed” and try things even when the outcome is uncertain. There are books written about just this like; The Gift Of Failure, by Jessica Lahey and The Gifts Of Imperfection, by Brene Brown. Both talk about how most of life’s great lessons are learned through some kind of struggle. But, if you’ve been parenting a child for a hot minute, you’ll notice, that good, old-fashion struggle is not readily available for kids today.

Now, I’m not saying it’s not hard to be a kid today; it most certainly is. Kids of this generation are faced with a whole host of challenges that we did not have. What I’m saying is that there are not a lot of occasions where kids today are figuring it out on their own. Start a new sport? Instead of struggling and being the worst player on the team for a season, you get a private coach to help you out. Math grade not where you want it to be? Mom and dad find a tutor for you to give you the extra help you need. Some may say that there is nothing wrong with this, that you’re simply using the resources available to you to help your child be successful. I don’t disagree and I’m even guilty of it myself. But, I’m not sure how this jives with resilience?

It’s often a vicious cycle we get caught in as parents. We’re stuck in some weird bell curve. If your child’s peers are tutored/coached and your kid is not, then are you putting them at a disadvantage? Or are you robbing them of the struggle that will eventually show them how to persist through adversity. I’m using the term “adversity” loosely. Let’s be honest getting a sub- par grade or stinking it up on the field is certainly not a real hardship but, to a kid it can certainly feel like it. As parents, we tend to be invested our children’s difficulties. So, where’s the balance? How do we give these kids the gift of failure and, ultimately, resilience if we never step back?

The honest truth is: I have no idea. My painful guess is it’s a process of trial and error. It’s a scary little tango on the line between failure and too much help. Because, the last thing you want to do is rob your child of that feeling of conquering a challenge. That feeling that you know will serve them over and over again throughout life. They need to know that they can do hard things on their own. They need to believe that they are capable. They need to learn it for themselves.

One of my friends shared a scaffolding analogy that I truly love and think of often (like every time I’m about to lose it). She told me that when a great building is built, they utilize scaffolding to ensure that the building process is safe. The scaffolding enables the people building extra security to make sure that each step in the process is complete before moving on to the next. As each of facet of building is complete, the scaffolding is slowly removed and, eventually, the building stands on its own. So, maybe that’s the answer? We are the scaffolding. We are there to ensure that the foundation is strong, that the building has all that it needs to stand on its own. Piece by piece we can remove our support, knowing that it can always be put back in place if things get shaky.

So, make your scaffolding out of love and and consequences and faith and principles. And, take a deep breath every time you have to let a piece of it fall away. Because, a building is meant to stand on its own and scaffolding is temporary by nature. Have faith that the foundation is strong, the building will be beautiful, and Costco always has more wine!