The Hardest Thing Ever
Posted
February 27, 2008 at
9:55 am by
Rita
I always said the hardest part of being a parent was disciplining. It’s so much easier to just say, “Yes” to whatever they ask and pretend that whatever they did wrong will be just the single event. They won’t do that again, I don’t need to get worked up about it. It takes real courage and strength as a parent to get your hands dirty and be the bad guy. But, you know that they’re better off in the long run for it, no matter how much they seem to hate you in the moment.
But, that’s not the hardest part of being a parent. That’s just the first really hard part. That’s just an unfun thing you get an early start on and have to work at for the duration of the whole job. The hardest part of being a parent is watching your children fail. Having three kids who are pretty outgoing in many activities, it always surprises me just how much it fucking hurts when one of them fails at something meaningful.
My initial reaction is to protect my child. Scream outrage and injustice at whatever circumstances surrounded the failure. Point fingers at anyone else available. Thankfully, I’m also an introvert, so this part of it happens pretty much only in my head. I know there are plenty of other parents who do it out loud though.
The next stage for me is to blame myself. I go through my entire history of parenting this child and seek out errors that may have damaged the child in such a way that he or she faltered at this critical time, causing the failure. Maybe I pushed too hard? Maybe I didn’t push hard enough? Maybe if I had been more patient, understanding, engaged throughout his or her life, the kid would have more confidence and would have sailed through this fine. This stage lasts a long time for me. It’s a comfortable place for me, for a lot of reasons, to take the blame for whatever goes wrong. So, I can wallow in and out of this for days, if I don’t force myself to get over it.
The final stage is giving the child due credit. Failure is earned just like success. If the child hadn’t tried, he or she wouldn’t have failed. A failure is one of the two outcomes of taking a risk, and as the saying goes, you can’t win them all. The child took a chance and maybe he or she wasn’t as well prepared as possible (maybe a little bit of Stage 1 or Stage 2 does come into play with that sometimes), or maybe their opponent was just a little better prepared.
I’m sorry to say that getting to that stage of acceptance is still only half the battle. You’ve only convinced yourself of the reality of it all. Next you have to deal with your child. You have to convince the child that there was no conspiracy to cause the failure. You have to assure the child that he is not stupid, or clumsy or that she is not the worst person ever to do this thing. You have to be strong while you listen to your child run through pretty much the same thoughts of self-loathing that you had just prescribed for yourself. Like any other whipping, you’d rather give yourself up for it than your kid, and it’s so much harder hearing your kid to it to himself. You have to console this hurt child and then convince her to risk it all again, to get back on that horse even though she may very well fall again the next time, and that, my friends is the hardest thing ever.
My middle child just turned 9 in January and she’s supposed to be testing for her first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do on Saturday. She pre-tested last night and failed. She has one more opportunity to pass the pre-test to get approval to test. So, we’re aggressively coaxing this little girl back up on top of the bucking Clydesdale, hoping against hope that she doesn’t fall again, because I don’t know if she can take a take a tumble like that twice without something breaking.
Tags: 9-year-olds, child-failure, child-success, martial-arts, self-esteem, tae-kwon-do |
7 Responses to “The Hardest Thing Ever”
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1. Jon said:
February 27, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Another insightful post Rita, however I would like to throw a little spanner in the works…
First degree black belt in TaeKwonDo at NINE!!!
Now don’t get me wrong I have very little experience of martial arts schools in the states (I understand they are run a lot more as businesses than they are here in the UK) however I do have a lot of experience with martial arts in general and I have to say I’m all for kids getting introduced to arts at an early age (for all the right reasons) but for me the “Black Belt” is a symbol that does (and should) carry a lot of weight - not just physically but also mentally in terms of responsiblity and character.
I’ve seen UK schools (some that my friends kids attended) churning out little black belts - mostly as a money grabbing activity.
Now please don’t get me wrong - I no nothing about your kids but I personally don’t think any “child” should be graded to 1st degree, 1st dan, black sash or whatever until at least the age of 16 AND they’ved proved their character.
As you said, failing is half the lesson, I’ve heard of schools that failed EVERY candidate on their first attempt as much to test their character as anything else. In this case make failing the lesson - let your child learn to appreciate just what a commitment and achievement attaining a black belt in any art is, personally I would say she’s not ready (purely on age at the moment), encourage her to work on her basics, study the kata (I think they’re called patterns in TKD) and I mean *really* study the kata (not just the moves) - learn the art and the philisophy behind TKD, use it as a mirror to view the self, one which should be polished relentlessly
Now obviously this is probably going to go way over your little one’s head - and that’s my point.
I can point you in the direction of some good authors and reference books on this side of things if you want.
Best wishes
Jon…
2. Jon said:
February 27, 2008 @ 11:41 am
Rita,
I was just browsing your “other blog” and I read a bit more background at your little one’s BlackBelt test.
Firstly - I don’t care what ANYONE says to you or tells you different, attempting to break boards at age 9 will ONLY lead to long term injuries and skeletal problems later in life.
Professional kareteka practise for hours to DEADEN the nerves and develop CALLOUSES on their hands. Muay Thai boxers roll coke bottles and broom handles up and down their shins for the same reasons. I’ve broken boards (and other things) in the past and I have the hands to show for it (but at 6′4″ and 230 lbs it’s not that out of place).
As much of a die hard fan of martial arts and their character building attributes as I am I would not let ANY of my kids (male or female) practise breaking techniques with ANY part of their body until their skeletal and muscle structure is completly formed (which it certainly isn’t at 9).
If you don’t take my word for it please do some more research and come to your own conclusion, I doubt your daughter wants scarred, callous hands and knuckles by the time she’s 18.
(feel free to email me if you want to discuss this further)
Stay safe
Jon…
3. Rita said:
February 27, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Well, to be fair, they use the synthetic break-away boards. Let me see if I can find a link…yeah, like this kind: http://www.nextag.com/rebreakable-boards/search-html They have different levels of difficulty according to color. My daughter is at the lowest color. But, she has to run and jump over an obstacle that is more than half her height and break it with a flying side kick. Which is hard.
I agree with you on the maturity and mental focus component of the black belt. But, I also think that when kids work hard, show commitment and determination, that they can represent the belt *for their age level.* Meaning that a black belt adult has different responsibilities and expectations than a black belt child. But, a child who wears the belt should be an model individual for that age. The ATA also advances people with mental and physical disabilities, which means that the black belt they earn represents different responsibilities and expectations than it would on someone else. Does that make sense?
In the ATA system, they say that training only really begins when you get your black belt. And, I can see that. It’s different at that level, the motivation is more internal and it is much more individual driven and the path more personal. It is like a totally different experience, as we’ve seen since my son earned his belt last summer.
My daughter has been participating in this sport for exactly three years today. Going to classes 3-5 times a week, competing in tournaments, and participating in the Leadership program. She is a very talented little person. Failure in itself would not crush her, either. There’s another component to this particular testing though–if she doesn’t test (because she fails her pre-test), then she is automatically demoted to red belt, and she’ll have to test for 1st degree recommended again and then test for 1st degree. So, there’s a big pride thing with this one. If she fails the actual testing, then she is NOT demoted. But, she has to test or she loses her rank. It’s all a learning experience, and we’ll help her prepare the best we can and either she’ll score high enough or she won’t.
4. Jon said:
February 27, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
Thanks for the update, I didn’t wish to be overly dramatic - I’ve seen those types of boards advertised before but never had chance to experience it in the flesh. I’d still approach all those things with caution though, she’s only young once and the body is a precious thing.
It sounds like both your children are really learning and experiencing the best martial arts have to offer, I take my hat off to you for finding such a good school, there are far too many blackbelt factories out there.
Please pass my best wishes on to your daughter for her test, tell her to enjoy it and regardless of the result, she can look back on the past three years and see the progress she’s made - the persistance of this feat alone put’s her light years ahead of many of her peers.
Remember failing is not being knocked down, failing is not getting up again afterwards.
Regards
Jon…
5. Rita said:
February 28, 2008 @ 8:01 am
We have watched some of those shows (on TLC or Discovery) about some of those older martial arts styles and how deadly they are because of what you just described–tearing down the actual bone and muscle tissue so that it forms again re-calcified. It is fascinating. That’s not what my kids are doing, lol. We live in a pretty upscale midwestern suburb, where the parents kind of hover and coo and get all overexcited if their kids get a blister, so I don’t think any kind of super-traditional place would get any kind of business if the kids were going home injured every day.
One class, ages ago, the previous instructor (whose off in LA making movies right now–he’s in a Jackie Chan Hong Kong production and he’s filming a TV series right now), decided to give the kids a taste of “old school,” and he went around scowling and shouting at them and whacking their legs with a pool noodle he pretended was a bamboo staff. Knowing this guy, it was hilarious, because he’s just not like that, but we also knew that there was truth in what he was saying.
But, in general my post was supposed to be about just how helpless you feel as a parent. Losing is, of course a huge growth experience for the kids. But, it’s also a huge growth experience for the parents. You think you’ve got it all down, because you’ve failed and learned from it, but it’s just a whole different world when you’re experiencing things from the sidelines, watching your kids go out there and lay their hearts on the line. My daughter’s pre-test was just the issue in my face that was the inspiration to talk about it. Then there’s the Academic Triathlon regional meet on March 14th where I have the wonderful opportunity of helping an entire team of 7th grade boys learn to deal with failure … again.
6. Jessica said:
February 28, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
It is heartbreaking to watch your kids fail but an invaluable lesson to be learned for sure. Our older son has just started getting into sports and his basketball team is really not good. I think they’ve only won one game all season.
My fear is that he won’t want to continue when he gets such little reward for his troubles.
7. Rita said:
February 28, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
[quote comment="146202"]
My fear is that he won’t want to continue when he gets such little reward for his troubles.[/quote]
That is the hard part. My son’s AT teams haven’t done well for the three years he’s done that activity. It is hard to convince them to keep at something when they keep being beaten. You can only expect them to buy that, “It’s not about winning, it’s about having fun! It’s about the other lessons you’re learning! This stuff is going to benefit you for the rest of your life!” so much before they just think you’re full of shit and it really IS all about that medal. And those “participant” medals are just insulting. They know who won. They want to WIN. And after a while you’re like, OK, we’ve got the graceful loser lesson down pretty pat now, let’s give these kids a shot at being graceful winners!