Giving Our Kids the Best Practice Years of Their Life

I’m excited to share my guest blog post featured today at Challenge Success.    What is Challenge Success, you ask?  “Challenge Success works with schools and families to develop research-based strategies that provide kids with the academic, social and emotional skills needed to succeed now and in the future.”

“At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores and performance, leaving little time and energy for our kids to become resilient, successful, meaningful contributors for the 21st century.  Every day, we provide families and schools with the practical, research-based tools they need to raise healthy, motivated kids.”

“Challenge Success has the experience, the expertise and the research to help schools and parents most effectively make the changes that lead to healthier kids who are more enthusiastic about life and learning.”  It is based out of Stanford University with Dr. Madeline Levine (author of Teach Your Children Well) as one of its founding members.

And now for  my post:

The taxi number was up on the refrigerator. She knew the time had come. She had missed the bus one too many times. I was upstairs biting my tongue.

I had rescued my daughter enough times by driving her to school when she overslept. “The next time you miss your bus, you’ll have to figure out how to get to school on your own,” I had said. “But none of my friends drive yet, how will I get there? I can’t take a taxi, it’s too much money.”

And so that became the solution to the problem, which quickly became extinct when she didn’t have enough money for her small pleasure items. When Esti had to dip into her weekly spending money and then some, getting up on time seemed like a better alternative than giving up her cash to a cab driver. I was out of rescue and savior mode and she was learning some great skills: responsibility, accountability, self-reliance. She obviously didn’t like it, but is parenting always about Liking and Pleasing?

Click here to continue reading this post over at Challenge Success.

Thanks for stopping by.  Comments are welcome here or there.  How are you building your child’s resiliency muscle?  And if you’ve completed your ‘job’ of raising kids, how did you foster some of these important traits?  And if you don’t have kids, what do you think is important for the next generation?