OPINION:
The classic story “The Three Little Pigs” provides a powerful metaphor for raising strong kids.
One little pig built his house of twigs, one built it of straw, and the other built it of bricks. The Big Bad Wolf made quick work of the first two houses, simply because they were built in haste with very weak materials. The first two piglets were poor builders because they placed their priority on short-term happiness instead of long-term stability. The wolf merely blew their houses down with his big bad breath. Only the third house, which required far more time and expense to construct, survived to protect its builder — and the two other piggies who fled to it.
Subscribe to have The Washington Times’ Higher Ground delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
Building something strong takes a lot more work and sacrifice than building something weak. To raise strong, capable kids, we have to put aside our desire to always make our kids happy and comfortable. It means preparing them for the real world, one that isn’t always a rose garden.
The building blocks of strength come down to simple actions you can take, starting when your children are young (although it’s never too late to start as long as children are still under your roof). These bricks will build kids who have the fortitude to keep going when things get tough. And once you’ve laid them, parenting will be easier.
Brick #1: Teach them how to do stuff. “Stuff” is a psychological term for mundane things that help kids feel strong when they do them. It’s also a term for skill sets that will enable them to become competent and free instead of dependent upon others for fixing everything that goes wrong with their homes, cars, work relationships, and other responsibilities. People who know how to repair stuff have much happier lives than those who don’t.
Great parents are great leaders: They are always trying to work themselves out of a job. They’re obsessed with teaching and empowering those under their care so that they, themselves, are no longer needed. When leaders do this, they rise to higher levels of leadership. When parents do this, their children become leaders, not helpless followers.
Brick #2: Expect them to spend more time creating than skating.
When we stop learning or doing anything new, our brains get in a rut. It takes action outside of our comfort zones to create and strengthen new neural pathways. Learning increases the connections within the brain. More connections equal a stronger brain, and research shows that lifelong learning keeps the brain strong no matter the age. It can take as little as 15 minutes of new learning each day.
Brick #3: Expect them to complete chores.
Chores are not punishments. They are opportunities for young people to contribute to the family in real and meaningful ways. It’s part of connecting to their purpose as a member of the family. When you expect chores, kids learn grit and develop a sense of being bonded to the family and its values. That’s right. When treated as needed and valued members of any team, we internalize the values of that team. Therefore, kids who are allowed to skate at home often lack the roots required to help them resist peer pressure. Rather than gaining their values from their parents and family, they pull them from peers, popular music, and other less-than-reliable sources.
For decades, the Love and Logic approach has encouraged parents to use the term “contributions to the family” rather than “chores.” When the focus is placed on contributing, young people are less likely to view helping out as an arbitrary punishment. They’re also more likely to eventually understand that one of the primary joys of life is to contribute to the welfare of others.
Brick #4: Quit your job as entertainment director. In days gone by, very few parents were entertainment directors, feeling responsible for ensuring that their children never became bored. Today, far too many well-meaning parents jump through hoops making sure that their children never experience a lull in the action.
Parents are wise, instead, to allow their children to grapple with the discomfort of occasionally having nothing to do. How many of humankind’s greatest works of art, scientific discoveries, and inventions have happened because people had the time to think and to wonder and to imagine something better? In boredom lie the seeds of creativity. When disturbed, this fertile ground fails to yield fruit.
Brick #5: Teach kids to say no to themselves. Mentally strong kids need self-control. One of the most difficult things in life — whether your child is 5, 15, or 25 — is making a short-term sacrifice in favor of long-term gain.
To help your child learn to say no to themselves, teach them some of these distraction techniques:
- Sing a song
- Look the other way
- Talk to yourself and remind yourself why it’s better to wait
- Take a walk
- Think about pleasant memories
- Play a game
In addition, every time your child asks you to do something that isn’t good for them — swimming without a life jacket, skateboarding without a helmet, eating an entire container of ice cream — and you say no it teaches them to say no to themselves. By helping your kids resist temptations at an early age, you are reinforcing their mental fortitude, which will pay off bigger dividends throughout their lifetime.
All living things need manageable struggle to grow and reach their potential. Dr. Fay witnessed an example of this when the rural power company replaced the electrical power lines. The original lines had experienced well over 60 years of extreme winds and temperature variations. Living over 10,000 feet above sea level, Dr. Fay’s community often experiences wintertime gusts of over 80 miles per hour. During dry summers the area is also prone to wildfires because of the dense forest and hazards like lightning, unattended campfires and broken electrical lines.
To replace the lines, crews used helicopters to remove the large old-growth trees, pluck the old power poles out of the rocky ground, and replace them with new and stronger ones. To avoid leaving the entire area barren, they left the younger, smaller trees in place. It wasn’t long, however, before winter returned along with its fierce winds. The first round uprooted nearly all of the smaller trees, exposing the fact that they had almost no root structure. In fact, their roots were so underdeveloped that they could barely support their own weight.
The community there learned that the shelter of the larger trees provided support for the newer, smaller ones while also letting them be exposed to some adverse conditions. Adversity without support can overwhelm your children (that’s what often happens in trauma) and leave them uprooted. Adversity with support allows them to grow tall and strong. The key is the right amount of support that doesn’t overshadow the young trees nor leave them overexposed. The choice is yours as their parent. If you remain committed to supporting your children as you allow them to struggle, they can develop the strength of those capable of resisting the gale force winds of this life.
–
Adapted from “Raising Mentally Strong Kids: How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults” by Daniel G. Amen, MD, and Charles Fay, PhD, releasing in March 2024.
Daniel G. Amen, MD, has helped millions of people change their brains and lives. He is the founder of Amen Clinics with 11 locations across the United States, an 18-time national bestselling author, and the creator of online videos about the brain and mental health that have been viewed over 300 million times. He has written and produced 17 national public television specials about the brain that have aired more than 150,000 times across North America. Dr. Amen believes we can end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health, and he regularly speaks to businesses, organizations, and churches about how to have a better brain and a better life.
Charles Fay, PhD, is an internationally recognized author, consultant, and public speaker. He is also president of the Love and Logic Institute, which became part of Amen Clinics in 2020. Millions of educators, mental health professionals, and parents worldwide have benefited from Dr. Fay’s down-to-earth solutions to the most common and frustrating behaviors displayed by youth of all ages. These methods come directly from years of experience serving severely disturbed youth and their families in psychiatric hospitals, public and private schools, homes, and other settings. For more information, visit loveandlogic.com.