The past two days, I have blogged about the changes adults have made in the way we lead, teach and parent kids over the last thirty years. Kids are definitely growing up in a more controlled environment than I did. My conclusion is—there are shifts we’ve made that have had unintended consequences to them. Four of those shifts are what I’ve focused on in this series. Adults have not let kids…
Today, I will handle the third change and how it’s affected young people. Continue Reading
Yesterday, I blogged about the changes adults have made in the way we lead, teach and parent kids over the last thirty years. Kids are definitely growing up in a more controlled environment than I did.
Social scientists agree that kids today are highly confident, and believe they can change the world. Unfortunately, there have been some unintended consequences to our new leadership style. Over a four-day period I will suggest four of them, and what we must do to balance the negative impact of the following:
Yesterday, I blogged about number one on this list. Let’s examine number two today.
2. Adults won’t let kids fall.
In many ways we’ve refused to allow our kids to be harmed, emotionally or physically. Helmets. Kneepads. Safety belts. More kids play inside in structured virtual games than outside where they can get hurt. This makes sense, but consider the potential damage in the long run. I know parents who’ve demanded that jungle gyms or monkey bars be removed from playgrounds. They’re too dangerous.
Psychologists in Europe have discovered, however, that if a child doesn’t play outside and is never allowed to experience a skinned knee or a broken bone, they may have phobias when they are adults. The truth is, kids need to fall a few times to learn it is normal; teens likely need to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to appreciate the emotional maturity that lasting relationships require. Pain is actually a necessary teacher. Consider your body for a moment. If your body didn’t feel pain, you could burn yourself or step on a nail and never do something about the damage and infection until it was too late. Pain is a part of health and maturity.
What can we do? First of all, don’t rescue kids from harm. Guide them, coach them and advise them on how to handle difficult times—but allow them the struggle of working their way through the process. Give them some freedom. Just like a butterfly must fight their way out of the cocoon in order to be strong enough to fly—young people must build emotional strength through hardship. No pain, no gain. Recently, our friends were outside with their eight-year old son. As we talked, their boy fell off the swing and began to cry. Instead of panicking, his mother calmed him and nursed his small wound, then told him he would be OK. Then, she shared how she had skinned her knee as a little girl…and everything turned out OK. Instantly, his tears dried up, he smiled and went back to his play.
Kids are growing up in a very different world than the one I grew up in. Both teachers and parents have changed the way they approach leading students. Some of these changes are great—but some have had unintended consequences. Continue Reading
This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It was April 1912, that the “unsinkable ship” slipped into the icy waters of the north Atlantic killing hundreds on board.
This month, one hundred years later, we witnessed another sinking ship, the Costa Concordia. It was a pitiful story of a skipper—who literally skipped his duties and was arrested for abandoning his ship. I have blogged twice about this miserable display of character and leadership (see post 1 and post 2). But, an even bigger story has emerged from the disaster about how the male leaders on board this ship reacted to the tragedy. I enjoyed reading Rich Lowry’s blog about this. Rich is the editor of the National Review.
If you haven’t seen this video yet, I hope you’ll get a laugh out of it!
My hope is that we can help those who are communicating with the next generation avoid communication failures and truly connect with those they lead.
Today, I am proud to officially announce the release of Habitudes for Communicators!
Order your copy of
Habitudes for Communicators
today by clicking here.
