OUR KIDS NEED COURAGE
In order to reach their potential, our kids need so much from us. They need our love and support and encouragement. They need our sacrifice and our commitment. They need our teaching and our advice. But our kids also need us to recognize that some of the things they need most can’t be given – they must be earned. Courage is a great example. Our kids need courage, but it’s not something we can buy on Amazon or give them for Christmas. We can talk to them about its importance all we want, but ultimately it’s something they have to experience and figure out and develop for themselves. That's not to say we don't play an important role in that process, though. We can't give our kids courage, but what we can do is provide them with the opportunities they need to do this important development work.
That work is so important because courage is a cornerstone of the champion’s identity. Real achievement in life requires it. As the famous saying goes, “You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes; that’s where the fruit is.” The problem is that while counterfeit courage seems to be at an all-time high, the real thing is getting harder and harder to find. We are raising a generation of young people who are increasingly deficient in this important area, mainly because we’ve provided them with so little opportunity to earn it.
As helicopter parents, we rob our kids of those opportunities by routinely rescuing them too quickly, or by encouraging them to avoid those opportunities altogether. We do this, of course, because we love them. We know, probably from experience, that that limb is flimsy, that it's a long way down from there, and that it'll hurt if they fall. But what we often fail to realize is that by focusing so much on protecting our kids, we’re doing a really poor job of preparing them to live with the courage that being their best requires.
When our kids find themselves out on a limb, what they need us to do is muster up enough of our own courage to leave them there. In fact, sometimes they need us to nudge them even farther out, to push them into a new, challenging experience – even if it’s a little scary – not because it’s going to be easy or because we can guarantee everything will go just the way we want, but because we recognize this opportunity to build in our kids something we really want them to have.
Out on the limb, our kids have an opportunity to build their courage, and to learn…
-that being a champion doesn’t mean you aren’t ever afraid, but it does mean you’ve clarified for yourself the truth about fear: that the worry we create in our minds is often an illusion.
-that going for it and failing is more fun, more rewarding, and more respectable than living with the regret that you didn’t even have the heart to try.
-how to discern good risk from bad risk.
-how it feels to have a backbone and to stand up for their convictions.
-to care more about doing the right thing than the popular thing.
-that doing something awesome usually requires overcoming some fear and taking some risks.
-to focus more on their character (who they really are) than their reputation (who others think they are).
-to work toward becoming the person they were created to be and not the person they feel pressured or obligated to be.
-to try hard things.
-to feel stretched by an experience that will help them improve.
-how to listen to, talk to, and overcome their voice of fear.
-how to do the right thing instead of the popular thing.
-to ignore the critics, haters, and naysayers who’d rather put others down than step in the arena themselves.
-that they’re capable of even more than they originally thought.
The truth is, our kids’ experience in sports provides an incredible opportunity – one of the best opportunities, I’d argue – to help them cultivate their courage. As they get older and the stakes get higher, there’ll be plenty of chances for them to face their fear, to go out on a limb, and to earn something valuable for themselves in the process. Our job is to let it happen.
Do we need to be there? Absolutely. They need our love and support and encouragement. They need our sacrifice and our commitment. They need our teaching and our advice. What they don’t need is our rescue. Instead, they need us to step back and let them cultivate their courage the only way it can happen – by earning it. They need us to spend less time focused on protecting them and more time focused on preparing them to live with the courage that being their best requires, on the playing field and beyond.