The universe says “We can do hard things”
Ever had a feeling the universe is trying to tell you something? One day, in the morning, I told (more like yelled) my kids that we can do hard things and “it’s too hard” doesn’t mean don’t try. In the afternoon, I was talking to my dear cousin about doing hard things in life when she recommended a podcast she likes called “We can do hard things”. That evening, I opened the newsletter from one of my favorite parenting authors Dr. Becky of Good Inside and in that particular newsletter, she recommended a podcast called…you guessed it, ‘We can Do hard Things’ with Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda.
Message received universe.
We can help kids learn to do hard things
This week’s tips and tricks come out of a conversation with an exceptionally qualified board of advisors on effective parenting – a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old. I asked them (peaceably and no yelling this time) how they psyched themselves up to do hard things especially when they had a choice not to do them.
As kids are wont to do, they shock you with their insight. The elegant simplicity of their answer was “because it’s fun”.
Why some hard things get done and others get, “It’s too hard!”?
Kids approach some hard things with zeal and even joy. Yet other things that should seem more palatable to them are met with the whiny protest of, ‘It’s too hard!’.
The same kid, who will fall off a bike and scrape their body raw, but then immediately get back up to try again, may complain whilst sitting safely in a chair that their homework is ‘too hard’. Doing homework definitely seems less dangerous than learning to ride a bike!
Fun is a common denominator when kids choose to pushing through hard things
You’ve been a kid. Did you have time to think how hard something was when you were having fun?
Think about it. This part of us doesn’t disappear even when we are old enough to choose our own bedtime. Yours truly is learning to roller skate and has seen many magnificent falls in the process. Why do I choose to persist!
Not All Hard Things can be fun – but for those that can be, why not make them so!
We are not saying everything in life has to be fun and enjoyable for a kid to do it. There are many things in life where we can’t infuse fun no matter how much we try.
The point is making a hard thing fun does motivate us to do it – despite it being hard. And per the expert advisory board’s message, fun can make everything about a hard thing better. Why wouldn’t we want that!
So for kids learning or practicing newly acquired skills, here are some tactical ways you can use digital resources to help them do this particular hard thing.
1. Use learning games
When learning anything, turning it into a game gets you there quicker. What we sometimes forget is that any reading game is practice for reading. And any math game is practice for math. So if Little Kennedy is incentivized to pick up a math game and play it happily, know that you are helping them do that hard thing.
2. Use videos to show kids instead of just telling them
Sometimes the realm of possibility in our minds are too small and words alone don’t get the message across. Enter video. Video does for visualization what salt does for a good BBQ – brings out all the flavor and life.
Say Little Kennedy is struggling to learn a piano piece. Show them a video of a child their age playing the same piece and they may see what is possible. Show what the inside of a rabbit hole is like and it will bring the rabbit habitat alive for the child.
3. Use Digital to expand the ways in which a concept is explained
Digital will allow you to explain one thing six different ways from Sunday. Before digital, it would just not have been possible for you to support a child with umpteen different visualizations of say the butterfly life cycle. Now with the internet, you can probably even find a butterfly rapping about its life cycle.
So there you have it. Three ways that you can use digital today to help your kids do a hard thing. And remember that you don’t have to do the work to do 1, 2 and 3 above. Aneta is literally created to make pre-created content that the kids can then navigate on their own available to you. So what’s your excuse? This isn’t even hard.
