Embrace the Struggle

 I looked back through old posts before starting this because I don’t like to be repetitive and I found a related topic but it didn’t quite get to the idea I’ve been tossing around lately so I decided to have a go at it. 

I’ve been noticing a lot lately that many parents want to solve things for their kids. Or prevent their kids from having to deal with stress or adversity. And while there are definitely many  approaches to parenting - ranging from  hands on and possibly micro-managing (aka helicopter parenting) all the way to free range - I wanted to talk about the idea behind some of this. Mostly the why (since we discussed how to help kids become more resilient in a prior post).

This morning I posed a question to a few friends - if we know that challenges and struggles make us stronger and help us become who we can potentially be - why do we try to avoid them? Shield our children from them?

I’m a big believer in the idea that when we take an idea apart, figure out the pieces - we can rebuild and put it together with a better solution. 

My friends posed several possible causes for this behavior.  Mostly it came down to fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of suffering. Fear of (fill in the blank). 

Think back in your own life to situations that you have gotten through. Some might have been by your own errors - making poor choices possibly - others were circumstances you found yourself in that were beyond your control. In both situations - you likely not only learned many things about how to proceed and about yourself - but also grew and developed into the person you have now become. 

Would you choose to redo them? Almost irrelevant. No one asks for a challenge. No one wants a struggle when it can be avoided. But when these situations arise - we tend to rise to the challenges. Grow from them. 

And pivot that to becoming good at something. The first time you try something it may be exceedingly difficult. You might want to quit before you’ve even put in the effort. But once you put in the time and build up some resilience, you might find that thing to be your most rewarding. 

How many people learned an instrument, took on a sport or a skill - all of these things take time and effort and work. Usually many tears are shed before it becomes your passion. But it changes your life to find that THING that just speaks to you. Helps relieve your stress. Helps you get into the zone. 

Now think practically - have you ever dealt with someone where you felt you had to be on top of them to make something happen? It can be intensely frustrating.

 Most of these people suffer from having had someone take care of too much for them. Shield them. Since they never had to face their own problems and come up with their own solutions, there’s just an expectation that someone else will take care of it or resolve it. Even when they have their own responsibilities, you still need to almost babysit them in order to get some thing done.

So bringing this full circle - what I’m not saying is to let our kids hang out to dry. I’m not trying to tell you don’t problem solve with them. But what I do want to impart is to let go of the fear - let them experience life. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Help them problem solve through their difficulties but don’t try to solve it for them - solve it with them. Understand that it’s ok for them to have hard things to overcome. They will grow. And they will thank you for it one day.