Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
How to Talk to Kids About Being Brave
This podcast will focus on the importance of being brave. We need courage when we venture out of our “comfort zone.” For many, courage is necessary when meeting new people or trying new activities. Some kids need courage when trying new foods, spending time away from home for the first time or speaking up when they disagree or see something unfair. Courage helps us to face our fears and “stretch us” so that we can experience more of life. How can we teach our kids to take healthy risks and how can we help them to lead a brave life? This podcast episode shows us how.
Special Guest: Margie Warrell
This podcast provides:
- Tips: Specific tips on what to do to help our children take healthy risks and lead a brave life.
- Scripts: What to say (and how to show and model) to our kids about getting out of their comfort zone as well as what kinds of risks are worth taking.
- How to add bravery into everyday experiences
Important Messages:
- Discomfort is a prerequisite for success.
- Parents are hard-wired to protect our children. We don’t want them to feel pain. We need to realize this so that we can give them room to become resilient and develop their radar so they know which risks to take.
- We need to allow our children to sit with the discomfort of an uncomfortable conversation.
- Allow kids to hear you be truthful and kind in uncomfortable situations so kids can see how to have productive, brave conversations.
- People who have achieved great things usually have gone through some hard knocks to get them there and have overcome great barriers.
- Share your experiences so they can hear your lessons and how you came through tough times.
- You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. ~Wayne Gretzky
- Look for examples in the real world to show what happens when you take bad, foolish risks (and the consequences) or healthy risks (and where they took them).
- Courage is like a muscle, the more often we practice it, the stronger it gets.
- Making failure something normal- celebrate the action vs the outcome
- How would you feel if you DON’T try this?
- Encourage your children in increments.
Notable Quotables:
- “So often [kids] can hide behind their devices that they fail to learn how to be brave in the conversations that matter.”
- “As parents, we are the ultimate leaders and our example that we set is far more powerful than what we say. And so we can tell them to do all sorts of things but if we’re not role modeling it, how can we really expect them to do it? They need to see us lead the way.”
- “If we wait until we know how to say something perfectly, we won’t say it at all.”
- “Failure is an event, not a person.”
- “We don’t want to inflict are kids with hard knocks but we do want to give them the skills and the belief and the self efficacy, so that when the bad things happen, because they will happen, that our kids aren’t destroyed by it.”
- “We need to teach our kids how to sit with the discomfort of an uncomfortable conversation…We need to be really intentional in teaching our kids the skills to speak and communicate and make braver decisions.”
- “Try out for the lead role…put yourself out there and risk falling short in the endeavor. We know from research that when people take risks and they go out on a limb and try things, not everyone is going to get first place, not everyone is going to get first place, not everyone is going to get the lead role, not everyone is going to be the MVP or become the point guard on the top team…however we know from research that people learn valuable skills in the process. They gain competence…and they learn that if they don’t get it, life goes on.”
- “When you let what other people think determine what you do and what you say and even what you wear, you are essentially giving power over to other people. You’re saying what you think matters more than what I think.”
- “When we stick those “proud honor society” bumper stickers on our car, we are really saying “I value achievement” vs “I value the effort.” Achievement is fantastic, we want our children achieve but I think we sometimes hold them back from daring to do things where they can achieve more because they’re afraid that I they try, they won’t get the gold.”
- “Courage is like a muscle, the more often we practice it, the stronger it gets.”
