Welcome to my Message of the Week Program.
This week, we want to talk about having a good attitude and within having a good attitude.
Working with the kids, we talked specifically about having a whatever it takes attitude in today’s society.
It’s very instant gratification based, and I’m hearing more and more from parents that if the kids, if their child doesn’t get it right the very first time, they just kind of throw in the towel and they say, Forget it, I don’t want to do it.
Uh, and that’s certainly not a healthy mindset or attitude to have.
It’s going to limit and stifle a lot of things they can do throughout their entire life.
Uh, so one of the examples I use when I’m talking to parents is you know, we’ll just imagine if the very first time they stood up as an infant, they fell over, and at that point they said,
“Hey, you know what? This walking thing is just not for me. Forget it.”
You know, it’s kind of a ludicrous example, but again, the point is that it really sets that image of you can’t do that.
You get up, and you try again.
Similarly, once the kids get to the advanced stages, one of the things we talk about is why do we fall down?
We fall down so we can learn how to get back up, which teaches the kids that life is not always going to be easy.
And sometimes you again talk to parents.
They want to shelter their child and not allow them to experience any discomfort or any pain or any negative experience.
And I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, but it’s really, really hurting your child in the long run.
So when we’re teaching the child how to have a whatever it takes attitude, it basically says, I’m going to stick with this and I’m going to keep doing it until it’s done.
And if we can teach that to him at a young age, it’s going to help them immeasurably throughout their entire life.
And so what we talk about is, you know, there’s times you’re going to have to do things that you don’t want to do.
So if, for example, your favorite cartoon is on T. V and you need to do your homework, what should you be doing, you know, and the kids all say I should be doing my homework.
They know what the right thing to do is. They just need that reinforcement and sometimes that correction from us as a reminder that you should be doing this.
That’s the thing to do, because their job right now is to get good grades, and what we teach them is everything in life comes at a price.
So the price of getting good grades might be missing your favorite TV show.
It might be not playing with your friend or playing your favorite video game.
Uh, you’re gonna have to sit and study.
You’re going to have to pay attention in class, so maybe you can talk to your friend next to you while the teacher’s talking as you shouldn’t be.
So teaching them that there are these prices to get these results by teaching that to him now at a young age, it’s really going to hit home and then hopefully stick with them as it becomes more and more important as they grow older.
So think about teaching your child to have a whatever it takes attitude.
Now, as a caveat, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with stopping an activity or something that it is that they truly don’t enjoy.
But again, the idea would be you have to finish it first.
So a thing that might come to mind would be, say, soccer.
You know, they try soccer to see if they like it or baseball, whatever sport.
And halfway through the season, you know, they’re like, Yeah, I just really don’t enjoy this.
And you can see that they don’t enjoy it, and they’re not getting any benefit from it.
So you know what?
We’re not gonna play again next season.
We gave it a try, and you decided you didn’t like it, right?
But you don’t just suddenly in the middle of the season say okay, well, they don’t want to go anymore.
I’m not going to make them.
We quit.
Uh, the other thing again, we talk about real quick.
Is the quit.
Getting to quit brings to mind the quit muscle.
This is another thing that I use as an analogy that think of quitting as a muscle.
And the more you practice it, the stronger that muscle gets, just like our regular bodies.
So we don’t want to practice our quit muscle and naturally the kids will sit there and ask, Well, where is my quit muscle?
And it’s like, Well, it’s different on everybody, so we don’t really know where it is, but we don’t want to work it out.
And so being able to make sure that they practice having or whatever it takes attitude, sticking with things until they get done, is going to be a huge or help them be hugely successful in the rest of their lives.
So think about that for this week’s lesson.
See how you can help teach that to your child and I’ll talk to you next week.