Struggle Is Critical for Growth
One of the things I have always tried to do as a parent is to protect my children from struggling. I thought I was doing a good thing, but over time and with some reflection, I understood that struggling through things is much like learning to ride a bicycle. Before you master balance and speed, you’re going to fall quite a few times. Then, all at once, you’ll find yourself upright and moving forward. Before you know it, it’s as though you were born on a bike! The wounds are healed, and the wind is in your hair.
Life is like that. So, how do we help our kids struggle over life’s bumps? How do we help them develop coping skills when things don’t go their way? How are we ever going to LET GO??? In The Biggest Job We’ll Ever Have, a book written by Laura and Malcolm Gauld, the concept of “perfection” is addressed, as is our ideal of how we want our kids to be. In reality our children are individuals with unique personalities and ways of thinking, and no matter how hard we try, we will never make them into our “mini-me.” They need to struggle through the myriads of things life throws at them to discover who they are and what makes them their unique selves.
So, as my children grew up and exerted their sense of wanting to figure things out, I learned that I struggled to teach myself to step back and focus more on my growth, a process they could observe and emulate if they were so inclined. When they had their struggles, rather than giving them my answers, I tried to ask them questions so they could work on developing their solutions to their problems. Sometimes they fell, but in falling, they learned valuable lessons about picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and trying again with renewed vigor. It’s not a perfect world, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that we can make it so for our children. Only they can work on themselves until they learn that it isn’t a perfect world for anyone. In accepting this reality and understanding their power to change for themselves, will they learn to feel secure in their knowledge that they have the tools in their toolbox to help themselves?
Here is a wonderful short TED TALK you may find thought-provoking: Julie Lythcott Haim’s How to Raise Successful Kids without Over-Parenting.