Family Times: Risks and challenges
Family Times columnist, Diane McKinstry, says we need to give others enough time and space to ‘have a go’.
There was once a young girl who offered to help her father with jobs outside their house. The father wanted the autumn leaves to be tidied up so he gave her a rake.
The daughter started to rake the leaves trying to get them all into a pile. This wasn’t an easy job for her but she persevered. Soon, her father grabbed the rake out of her hands, told her he would rake the leaves as he could do a better job, and sent her on her way.
Are there times when we are impatient, not allowing others to persevere at a task or a challenge? Do we see the end result as being more important than the journey or the process? Sometimes we don’t give others enough time and space to ‘have a go’, to make mistakes and to learn.
There are many opportunities for our children and teenagers to learn from taking risks and being challenged without the fear of failure. Of course, we must consider setting some limits for health and safety reasons. Adventure, exploration and problem solving are essentials.
Psychologist and author Carol Dweck carried out some research in the 1980s. She found although some girls were quite capable of performing tasks, they seemed to lack the confidence to attempt these tasks due to wrong self-talk. These girls had a desire to show perfection in the process and in the end result. If they couldn’t show this perfection, they tended to give up.
This was in contrast to most of the boys who welcomed the challenges and wanted to persevere.
Let’s encourage all our children and teenagers to take risks, even if they may not hit the mark every time. We can let them know it is fine to ‘have a go’, to be brave and courageous, to ask questions and to make mistakes. We can let them know that they are unconditionally accepted so that one day when they see opportunities for potential employment, to be cast in a local theatre’s play or to have a place on a sports team, they will have a desire to go through the selection process with courage – even if it may mean they will not be successful all of the time. We want young people in our communities to take up challenges and persevere with endurance. Not to be perfect. This has to be better for them and for our society.
Diane McKinstry
REAL- coaching for parents & educators
realparenting.co,nz