Climbing Mountains: Five Life-Skills Children Learn When Parents Choose Not to Enable by Dr. Rob Anthony
As a high school principal, I have many conversations with parents about how to help them help their own children. Having offered much advice over the years, here is a summary of what I teach parents. My hope is that this article will help extend my reach outside the doors of my office.
Some of life’s challenges can seem like mountains, especially to children. Unfortunately, some parents try to move the “mountains” that are before their children when they should instead teach their children how to climb mountains. In education, we define such parents as “enablers,” for by moving mountains instead of allowing their children to mountaineer life’s challenges, such parents enable their children to give excuses for problems. This causes children to miss opportunities to develop critical life skills.
If you are a parent who wants your children to succeed, here are five skills kids learn as they go “up and over” challenges like they would a mountain.
Dignity - This commonly refers to the honor we confer on others by appealing to their intellect with honesty and truth, offering sensitivity to feelings, and respecting one’s right of self-determination. We dignify people by recognizing their value as human beings. By teaching children to dignify others, kids reciprocally learn that they should expect others to dignify them as well. Thus, dignity refers to a pattern of moral behavior that both warrants and gives honor. By teaching our children of their own dignity, we instill value in them while at the same teaching them that others likewise deserve it.
Self-Discipline – The ability to restrain oneself from various feelings, impulses, and desires serves as a shield against temptations to settle for what is easy. The right choice and the difficult choice are often one and the same. Temptations to lose discipline always come in the form of lusting after something we see, something that brings bodily pleasure, or something that inflates our pride. Many bad decisions are easy to choose and made when we lose discipline and fall for these categories of temptation. Our children will be tempted to lose self-discipline for the entirety of their lives, so it is paramount they learn not to.
Responsibility – Since reputation is determined by action, responsibility thus carries with it culpability. Personal growth and respect are inhibited when one chooses not to do what is expected of them. By teaching our kids responsibility, they do as expected, accomplish more, and honor both themselves and the values you instill. Furthermore, they develop trustworthiness.
Accountability – Not be confused with “responsibility,” accountability simply necessitates giving an answer and does not imply obligation. This is a crucial skill. Our children are never responsible for what happens to them in life, but they are always accountable for their responses regarding what occurs. How they respond is what will determine progress or stagnation. Accountability trains our kids in humility, and it provides ways for them to be proactive and intentional. When our kids learn accountability, they never have to be victims again for they are in control of their responses.
Resilience – Resilience is the quality of being able to adapt to life-stressors and overcoming hardship. Resilience is a response. It is choosing to respond wisely to suffering while growing both through and from it. The enemy of resilience is an incorrect assumption that one knows how challenges will end. When our children are allowed to believe that they know the concluding result of a matter, we invite them to give up instead of exercising resilience. Life bombards everyone with numerous hardships. If we hope to see our kids overcome their hardships, we must teach them to be resilient, not fix their problems for them.
In summary, metaphoric mountains continually offer opportunities for children to encounter challenges, react to them, and then reap the consequences of their responses whether these be positive or negative. This is practical learning. Mountain-climbing affords children the ability to adapt, which ultimately yields skillsets that promote wise choices, honor others, and set our kids up to be productive. The next time your child encounters a mountain at school or in life, choose to help them scale it rather than enabling them to produce excuses. They will one day thank you, and you will place yourself in company as rare as the air on literal mountain tops.
Dr. Anthony is a cancer-survivor, secondary administrator, author, speaker, and advocate for wise living. He is the author of Finite Obstacles ~ Infinite Truth. He adds value to others’ lives by teaching people how to overcome challenges, how to lead with grace and accountability, and by advocating for wise choices based on truth. Learn more at www.DrRobAnthony.com, and on LinkedIn.