I want my kids to be tough. Not mean, not callous, just tough. When they skin their knee, I want them to rub dirt in it, and get back in the game. When life comes at them hard, I want them to bounce, not crumble. But, how can I help my kids to be tough?
The answer may not be what you expect. The sink-or-swim method doesn’t work. They need more than to be thrown into the deep end of life and told to fend for themselves. The sink-or-swim method usually fails in one of two ways. The first way is that it actually fails to toughen kids up at all. Fear and failure overwhelm them and they just crumble under the weight of your expectations. The second way they fail is that they don’t just get tough, they get calloused. They rub dirt in their skinned knees, but they also rub dirt in the faces of those around them. They see pain and suffering in the world and have no care or compassion for others.
We want kids who can handle whatever life throws at them, but we also want them to be able to weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice.
Instead of sending them into the deep end of life to fend for themselves, we train our kids in toughness by doing hard things with them.
Hard things change with age, but every age presents an opportunity to do hard things.
Just consider the hard things that you do with your kids naturally as they grow up:
- Potty training
- Learning to tie shoes
- Learning to read
- Making beds
- Common core math (Yes, this is hard for all of us)
- Buttoning buttons
- Buckling seat belts
- Hitting a baseball
- Sitting still during worship
Sure, as grown-ups, many of these seem easy, but when you’re young all of these present unique challenges. And, I can attest that in some situations, potty training is at least as hard on parents as it is on kids. But, what happens when we’ve hit all of these milestones by age 5 or 6? Do we continue to do hard things with our kids? Do we continue to walk with them in places where they will fall or fail?
If we push them out too early, they learn that when they fall, they fall all alone. If we protect them too long, they begin to believe that if they fall, everything will fall apart.
But, if we walk out of the nest with them into hard places, they learn that when they fall, we will be there to catch them or at least to clean their wounds and put on bandages. Maybe, if we are there, we can reassure them when they fail that they are going to be OK. Sometimes, we will even need to remind them when they get hurt that it isn’t the end of the world and they need to suck it up. When we walk with them into hard places, they also get to see us fall and fail. They see our skinned knees and bruised pride and learn that everyone messes up. They see our failures, but they also see us get back up and learn that recovery is possible.
I want my kids to be tough, but the kind of toughness I want them to display requires a bit of confidence in the world around them. Confidence that when they get knocked down they really can get back up. Confidence that even if some things are going wrong, the whole world isn’t wrong. Confidence that when they have to fight against hard things, they never have to fight alone.
I don’t want to raise snowflakes that melt when the heat comes. I want to raise men and women who rise to the occasion. I want to raise my kids to be adults who show up even in hard times and do the things that need to be done. Which means, I’m working to model that kind of life before my kids.
Do hard things with your kids, and watch as those hard things bring you closer as a family and strengthen your kids against the hard things that the world throws at them.
Here are some hard things you might try this week:
- Learn a skill together
- Do common core math (yes, it continues to be hard)
- Split wood
- Go for a hike (a real one, not a walk through your neighborhood)
- Build a treehouse (or something else that requires time and attention to detail)
- Get a puppy (way better than a cat)
- Lift weights
- Clean the yard
- Sew a clothing item (My daughter worked with her grandma to sew her own dress this summer)
- Paint a room
- Cook a meal
