Challenging Your Kids to Climb to the Next Level
“So, do you think you can do it?”
Our guide had just finished telling me that it would be better for the boys to ride donkeys rather than to hike Pico Duarte. It is the Caribbean’s highest peak and a three-day endeavor for the hobbyist hiker. The climb is “muy peligrosa,” and there was talk of rocks and cliffs. He was adamant that he couldn’t in good conscience start us up the mountain without additional four-legged assistance. I replied with assuring overtures about how the boys clambered up hills and small mountains all summer long. They might be young, they might be small, but they were up to the challenge!
And then I wondered just how sure I could be.
In Resilience Parenting, we discuss how one of our roles as parents is to assess our child’s readiness for a given task. If we do so accurately, our child is challenged with just the right level of difficulty to help them ascend to new levels and feel the delicious reward of fulfillment. If we assess poorly, however, they become overwhelmed. They may slip backward, unwilling to take on the next challenge that would help them grow. They may not trust us the next time we present such an opportunity.
Assessing readiness is a challenge in itself. (Try not to get overwhelmed!) In the case of this conversation/negotiation with our mountain guide, it wasn’t only us, the parents, needing to assess the situation. The outside world had a stake in it, as well. Our guide shared the responsibility of our safe passage up the mountain. Sure, we could declare that he didn’t know our kids, but we had to admit at the same time that we didn’t know the trail. Neither of us had complete information, yet we both thought that we were right. . . What to believe?
Based on popular news headlines, we know that prevailing parenting methodologies do not consistently produce resilient young adults. Therefore, we have to be very careful of arenas in which the outside world tries to impose its views and standards on our parenting. Doctors, teachers, coaches, friends; they all have something to say about how we raise our kids. We have to be careful, then, to consider each one in turn. We certainly don’t want to suggest that all outside views and recommendations are wrong, simply that we need to consider them—to see which ones are a fit for us, our kids, and our family. As parents, we need to be the experts on assessing readiness to challenge our kids without overwhelming them.
In this case, we took the numbers attributed to the Pico Duarte hike—10,164 feet high, 32.5 miles of distance roundtrip, 8,000-foot elevation gain (and lost again), three nights camping, et cetera—and measured them against experience. It truly didn’t seem like much of a leap beyond what the boys had done before. Nevertheless, taking our guide’s warnings into account, I wanted to be forthright with the kids. So I told them, “They don’t think you are ready for this challenge. Are you? Do you think you can do it?”
This was a new conversation for our family, and I found it to be effective and encouraging. In addition to being wise to our children’s readiness, why not help them practice self-assessment? It’s a vital part of maintaining one’s integrity throughout life. If you are to be a person who follows through on his or her obligations, you have to know what kind of tasks are reasonable to set for yourself. What will you do today that is challenging but not overwhelming so that you can experience fulfillment?
Well, all of our kids answered positively; they even said yes to the optional 4:30 AM start of the second day to see the sunrise at the summit. So I tried another step: “It’s possible that this guide is right, that this hike will be too hard for us. We might fail. If we do, that’s okay. We believe it’s better to try and fail than not to try at all.” Kids need to know that failure is a real possibility. But that it doesn’t have to result in a breakdown. A failure is merely an event, a data point upon which to base future self-assessment.
To prepare the kids for success, however, it’s helpful to set intentions beforehand—before emotion or fatigue gets in the way of positive thinking. So I asked one more question: “If you feel like giving up tomorrow, what can I say to help you? What is your motivation for doing this crazy adventure, anyway?”
Jack said he was excited about achieving a new record. Leo wanted the satisfaction at the end, knowing that he’d done something really hard, even if the journey itself wasn’t enjoyable. Seth… well, honestly, I can’t remember what Seth said. It turns out that I didn’t need to know—they were learning how to keep themselves motivated. They encouraged themselves. It wasn’t Mama or Papa pushing them up the mountain (or a donkey); it was the power of their own intentions.
Strive to know your children well enough to assess their readiness. Know that you are the expert, and your opinion can supersede what the world would believe they are capable of accomplishing. Empower your children to self-assess well and ease their concerns with the knowledge that failure is not an end but the beginning of the next adventure.
PS – They did it.
