Do you want to teach your child how to be brave? Then there are things we need to rein in, according to a child expert.
At the recently concluded Singapore Parenting Festival 2023, parents were able to participate in an engaging webinar entitled, Raise resilient children with 5Cs: Confidence, Connection, Character, Coping and Control, featuring two child experts in the country.
Featuring Cheryl Ann Chan, Senior Programme Manager at PlayFACTO School and Alvina Chin, Family Life Educator at Mums for Life, this session explored practical strategies and tips for parents to help their children develop these essential attributes, paving the way for a brighter and more successful future.
The event was a great success, and parents left the webinar feeling empowered and equipped with practical skills to raise brave, resilient and successful children.
How to Be Brave
Courage or bravery is a quality that we aspire our children to have. As a mum who was very cowardly as a child, I hope to raise kids that are brave in the true sense of the word. Borrowing a line from Princess Diaries:
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear; The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all."
So I don't mind if they don't dive head first in a swimming pool or if they are not the first to volunteer to hold a snake in the class field trip. But I want them to be brave when it counts: I want them to be able to stand up to bullies, speak up when they see wrongdoing and chase after their dreams.
But as much as I want my children to go for it, one thing that hinders me from letting my children explore is that ugly voice inside my head saying, They might get hurt, and it will be all your fault. It's me being so overly cautious and protective.
How Parents Get in the Way of Building Courage
We want to raise our kids to be brave. But what we don’t realise as parents is that we may be the ones who are hindering our children from developing courage.
In the webinar, Alvina Chin highlighted 3 ways that we are getting in the way of our kids learning how to be brave:
1. We overprotect
It's very natural for parents to be protective. And we have very good reasons to do that. But sometimes we might be actually hindering a very necessary process in our kid's life.
So, how do we overprotect our child? It’s when we rush in to solve their problems. We want to protect them from the discomfort of frustration or disappointment and failure, that we’re so quick to give solutions without letting them marinate on the situation first.
2. We overcontrol
And in our efforts to shield our children from failure, we might also overcontrol and micromanage situations. How does this come to play?
We might be very, very tempted to promote the kind of play that has a greater chance of success. We play games with them and we always let them win. Does that sound familiar? So, how does this hinder the development of courage?
“When we keep doing this right and micromanage situations, we limit the opportunities that our children need to develop perseverance and resilience as they grow because they will face even more challenges,” said Alvina.
“We need to give them that space to develop those skills. These are very, very important,” she added.
3. We undersupport
Raising courageous children usually involves dealing with fear and failure. And if parents struggle with fear and failure, it makes it very, very difficult for us to provide the support and encouragement that our children need to develop healthy ways of coping with this feeling.
Again, there's that nagging voice inside your head that tells us to worry and limit our children from experiencing these challenging situations.
For instance, my child has always wanted to try ziplining, but at the back of my head, I think of the countless ways she can get injured with such an activity. So I discourage her from trying that and go with a "safer" option instead.
So, what is the first step we must take to build courageous children? We must work on ourselves first.
Courageous Parents, Courageous Children
Do you believe that you have courage within you? You should. Case in point - you decided to become a parent.
“I think purely by being a parent, it's one of the bravest things you can do,” said Alvina.
“Because every day, this extension of you is just running, running around and you don't know if they're climbing something, you don't know the choice that they're making. So I think parents are just not aware of this daily courage that they are actually expressing in so many different ways.”
Now that we have learned to internalise our inner courage, we can now work on the steps of raising courageous children. The only thing you need to remember is to be BRAVE. How to be brave as a parent?
B - Believe that your child is capable.
R- Remember to model your courage
A - Affirm your child’s personal courage
V - Validate your child’s emotion
E - Empower your child to solve problems.
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Believe that your child is capable.
You've seen how your child can navigate that mobile screen and just swipe and do amazing things and search for things on their own. There’s no doubt about it. They are truly capable. You just have to remind yourself that they are.
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Remember to model your courage and talk about it.
One of the first steps in teaching your child how to be brave is by sharing your own experience with courage. Don’t hesitate to share your stories of personal courage with your child. Talk to them about how you handle failure. Talk about how you overcame fear. Share the moments that you chose courage over fear.
“The moment we express vulnerability to our children, our children actually find a role model in us. And this actually allows us to nurture a very emotionally supportive environment at home. So don't be afraid to talk about your failures,” said Alvina.
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Affirm your child’s personal courage.
Different children are afraid of different things. Some kids can be fearless when climbing slides while show shiver at the thought of going up such a height. As parents, we can find out what situation is particularly scary for our child. Why? So that we can recognise and point it out to our kids when they show personal courage.
“Young children don't necessarily understand the concept of courage. So that's why as parents, we need to understand or recognise what courage looks like for each child. And we point it out every time we see it,” said Alvina.
So the next time we see them overcome something that they are afraid of, we can affirm their courage and say, “That’s brave of you to do that because I know you were afraid of that the last time.”
“The more we affirm this courage, their personal courage, the more encouraged they would be to access it each time,” added the child expert.
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Validate your child’s emotions.
We might think that the slide or public speaking is not such a big deal, but for our child, it could have an enormous effect.
Validating their emotion is simply acknowledging this scary emotion in our child, how intense it is, and the effect or the impact it has on our child.
You might not agree with it, or think it's not something to be afraid of, but you're validating it for them because that's their experience. And as parents, what we can do is we can follow through by helping them to process their emotions in a very healthy way.
Research has shown that when we put feelings into words, it actually helps to call back our negative responses to fear. Saying it removes the stigma and its power over us.
“So let's learn to be comfortable talking about these really strong, negative feelings because it actually helps our children to have a healthy understanding of emotions as a teacher, emotions as a guide, rather than something to be afraid of or something that has control over them,” shared Alvina.
Let's also take the cue from our children. We cannot force them to face something they are not ready for. Instead, we should just support them and encourage them.
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Empower your child to solve problems.
If we want our children to learn how to be brave, overcome their fear and handle difficult situations, we need to trust that they can do it. So instead of stepping in at every challenge they face, just pause, and take a moment. Don't be so quick to rush in to fix things.
Alvina related an incident that happened when her child was being bullied in school. Her child relayed what was happening to her, and instead of going full Tiger mum mode, she asked her child, “So what are you going to do about it?”
“So he started telling me all these things that he was planning to do, and I thought, pretty solid plan, you know, and I say, ‘Yeah, I think that's a pretty good plan, go for it.’
But I also remember to tell him, ‘But at any point, if you find that your plan is not working the way you want it to and you need me to step in, just let me know. I am ready.’” she shared.
We want to nurture a sense of control and a sense of autonomy in our children. This is so crucial for their mental well-being because a lot of anxiety problems really stem from a sense of loss of control.
And the more children experience control in various aspects of their life, the more confident they will have in their own capabilities, to face challenges and overcome some of these challenges.
As parents, we need to provide a safe and very supportive environment at home for children to grow, where fears can be faced, and failure isn't fatal.
“To this, I want to say let's be courageous parents, to raise courageous children so that they will grow to be resilient adults,” finished Alvina.
You can watch the full webinar here:
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