Common Sense Parenting with Pam

Foundational Skills #4: Perseverance

• Pam Palanza • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Unlock the secrets to raising resilient children who approach life’s challenges with confidence and adaptability. On Common Sense Parenting with Pam, I promise you'll discover practical strategies and actionable tips for teaching perseverance, a vital skill that empowers children to tackle obstacles and achieve their goals. Whether it's learning to ride a bike or completing a complex puzzle, the episode emphasizes the importance of breaking down daunting tasks into smaller, achievable steps. By doing so, we prepare our children to face life's ups and downs with continued determination.

Join me as I share personal stories of my grandchildren's violin practice and my grandson's band concert, offering insights into the transformative power of perseverance. You'll learn how celebrating small victories fosters self-confidence and resilience in young minds. By encouraging persistence and applauding effort, we instill a growth mindset that will serve them throughout their lives. Don't miss out on this opportunity to equip your children with the tools they need for future success. And remember to tune in next week as we continue our journey into the world of adaptability.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Common Sense Parenting with Pam, the podcast where we simplify parenting with common sense tips, real life scenarios and a little bit of humor along the way. I'm Pam and I'm here to help you build the skills and confidence you need to raise happy, resilient and responsible children. You need to raise happy, resilient and responsible children. So grab your coffee, take a deep breath and let's tackle parenting one common sense tip at a time. Welcome to episode four, where we're talking about perseverance, how you can teach your child to stick to it, to have an attitude that they can push through when things get tough, and they stay motivated even when things get difficult. You know whether it's learning a new skill or they're facing challenges at school. Perseverance helps kids see that effort leads to growth. You don't want kids to be quitters. You want them to push through. If they fail, try again. If it doesn't work, keep moving, always one foot in front of the other, looking for that solution, pushing through. So this is an essential skill for your children to learn because it develops grit and resilience, which is a whole other episode we're going to be talking about later down the road. But they need to learn how to handle challenges and setbacks and difficult tasks. We all have had to do that as adults. We all have had to do that as adults. We all probably had to do that as children. But when they learn perseverance, it empowers them to keep trying, even when things get hard. We want them to develop that mindset that even when things get hard, effort is important, because if you keep up with the effort, you're going to see success eventually. So why is that so important? And you know in every episode here's what I try to do. I try to tell you you know what topic we're talking about, why it's important, and then how you can teach your child those things through real life scenarios. Here we go. Why is it important? Number one it builds resilience, and we're going to go in, like I said, a whole separate episode on resilience. It teaches kids how to bounce back from failure and keep going despite challenges, and this is something that's going to serve them for their entire life. Because you know what? Life doesn't just go smoothly. There's ups and there's downs, there's hills and there's mountains, and then there's deep, deep valleys. But if you don't know how to persevere, if you've not developed that skill or been taught that skill, how to keep going anyway. You get depressed, you quit. You just say, all right, never mind, I can't do it, you give up. We want your children to get a growth mindset. That's number two. We want your children to learn. When they persevere, those skills and abilities help them improve with effort. They can then begin to view challenges as opportunities to grow instead of looking at it as failure.

Speaker 1:

Now it also promotes problem solving, and we did that in episode one. So if you've not watched that one or listened to that one, go back to episode one. It's the very first episode of our new podcast. So when children persevere through their challenges, they learn to think creatively, they learn how to adapt, they learn how to solve problems instead of just giving up when the first solution doesn't work. And remember, if you listen to the problem solving episode where I talked about teaching children A, b, c and D right, if A doesn't work, go to B, go to plan C, just don't give up. You just keep going until you find a solution or it works out. You just don't stop and go. Oh, never mind, I give up. And I'll tell you.

Speaker 1:

I know adults like that. They never learned perseverance. They were able to just quit when they wanted to quit. You know here, quick example your child joins a sports team, never played a sport before, had a little bit of interest, said, oh, I'm going to try it. They tried for a couple weeks. They go yeah, I'm done, I quit, I don't want to do this anymore. They haven't persevered through it, they haven't given enough time, they just quit and walk away. What does that teach your child? That if things are hard or tough or I just decided I don't want to do it anymore, I'm just going to walk away. All right, we're going to get into a little bit of that later.

Speaker 1:

When they persevere and they are successful, that helps build their self-confidence. They are then learning that that hard work and determination can pay off, it can lead to success and it just helps reinforce the belief that they have about their own abilities and that's a real confidence booster. And we want our children to have good self-esteem and good confidence. It prepares them for future success because guess what, when they get out in the big old world they're going to have a lot of things to deal with, right. So when they learn perseverance at a young age and they learn you keep going, you keep going, you keep trying it. Also it's a key factor in them achieving long-term goals. So they learn that skill early. It sets them up for academic success, for healthy relationships, for a strong work ethic that will benefit them throughout their life.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so how can you demonstrate perseverance? So let me give you some real-life scenarios here. So you have a child learning to ride a bike and we've all had that experience, or you will. If you have young children and after a few falls, they're like nope, I quit, I can't do this, it's too hard, I quit. Well, what can you do? Because you don't want your child to quit and walk away, because then they're never going to learn to ride a bike. And that's fun, right, we want them to have fun. So here's some things you can do, some teaching moments.

Speaker 1:

So encourage them, like to break it down into small steps. So the first thing could be well, just let's balance on your bike for a while. Let's just see if you can feel that balancing back and forth and I'm right here beside you and I've got you. So give them that opportunity to balance for a while. Then let them sit on the bike and pedal with one foot and then they do two feet. So you reinforce for them that learning new things takes time. It doesn't always come easily the first time and sure they might fall. But you know, every time they try they're getting closer to riding that bike on their own. And then of course you're going to celebrate those small successes when they're balancing well, when they can ride a short distance by themselves, praise that for them, like wow, you rode a little further today. It's great progress, you're getting there. And then of course you're going to like hoot and holler when they're out riding the bike by themselves.

Speaker 1:

And let me just throw in a little tip here about teaching your child to ride their bike by themselves. Because we all know and this is how I did it with my kids you run behind them holding the seat or the back of their shirt, and still that's hard. But if you take a towel, like a bath towel, and put it across their chest and under their arms, so you're kind of holding it, but as they feel more secure, you're kind of easing up on the pull back on it, so they really are riding by themselves, but they think you're supporting them. Just a little tip Give it a try, okay. So let's give you another scenario.

Speaker 1:

You have a child playing on a trying to do a puzzle and they're getting focused on it. It's hard for them. Maybe there's a lot of pieces, you know, maybe it's just confusing for them, and so it's taking long and they're like I'm just going to quit, I'm never going to finish this. Well, sure, they can walk away, but what is it teaching them? That when things get hard, you walk away Instead, break it down to small steps. So maybe have them do one section of the puzzle at a time. You know, like finding the edges. That's how I always start jigsaw puzzles. You always start with those flat edges or then, after they've done that, they can work on just a specific color and they're getting all the pieces that are one specific color. So you encourage them as you're doing that and as they're doing it and, you know, talk to them about well, look what I'm doing, you're doing those and I'm finding these colors over here, and then we'll get together and we'll put these pieces together. So point out how focused they are and dedicated they are to that and go wow, you're really doing a good job sticking with this, even though it's hard. Sometimes. Things just aren't always easy, but you should be proud of yourself. Look how you're doing this. I'm really proud of you. So they learn that if they have this task to achieve and it looks so big to them or overwhelming, when they break it into smaller steps it's more manageable and they can become persistent and they can follow through and it leads to progress and success Brilliant.

Speaker 1:

Now how about practicing a musical instrument? And I've got to tell you my five and seven-year-old, my daughters too, they're learning violin. They've been playing violin and they have to practice every day, and so it's not a long period of time, it's, you know, I think five, 10 minutes a day they have to practice, or five-minute bites, so it's not like ugh and they always get a reward or something after it. But they learn. You have to practice this. Yes, it's not easy at first. Maybe you're just learning and it sounds squeaky and oh, don't we all remember? I remember my brother learning to play the saxophone when we were young I don't know, he was maybe 10 or 11, and oh my Lord, the noise that thing made. You know, hear it through the entire house. But if you stay with it, that squeakiness eventually becomes wonderful sounds that blend together and make beautiful music. Same thing you let them know that they're not going to pick up an instrument and automatically know how to play. I mean, these people who play musical instruments every day for a living, they didn't start out that way. They started out just like your child will picking up an instrument, squeaking their way through it, practicing, breaking that down until they eventually master it or at least learn it that they can play a song.

Speaker 1:

And we just went to my grandson's. He's 11, sixth grade. Last week we went to his band concert. He plays the trombone. So it was cute because you had the sixth graders and the seventh and the eighth graders. So the sixth graders, they did actually great. They'd only been in school for five weeks, six weeks maybe so they did really well. And it was a pretty large band. I mean, they had, I think, 50 kids in the band, which I was surprised about, but so they played well. But then the seventh graders played better and then by the eighth you know eighth graders it was a whole different thing, but it was great to see that progression and that's, you know, things like that are opportunities to say like, look and I even did talk to him about it after Like, wow, you guys are only been doing this for six weeks and look how good you did. But then compare he goes well. But the seventh and eighth graders I said well, yeah, but they've been playing longer than you.

Speaker 1:

Just use those little encouragements, but just explain. It takes practice. It might be slow, but everybody starts somewhere. And when you can break it down for them and they can just play little sections at a time for shorter periods of time, then they're doing it correctly. But emphasize it that that's just all part of a learning process. And then what that's teaching them is that if I persevere and if I practice, I'm going to improve, which makes me feel good about myself and I'm successful. And this feels pretty good, especially when they can play that whole song through without squeaking.

Speaker 1:

Say, you have a child that's working on a difficult math assignment and they're just overwhelmed and they're like, oh, I don't understand this, I'll never get this, I'm not doing this, it's so frustrating. And I felt that same way about geometry, trigonometry. You know not. Let's just say, math is not one of my passions in life, so I never really enjoyed it. But you know, of course we had to do it in school.

Speaker 1:

If you teach your child like, yes, this can be overwhelming, I get it, but if you do one problem, let's just focus on one problem for right now. Let's not worry about the whole assignment. Let's just start with question one. Let's break this down a little bit for you and do it in smaller bites and pieces until the whole thing comes together. And, you know, normalize this for them. Like, let them know that a lot of people struggle with difficult tasks, but you keep trying anyway. You keep on going, and then, of course, you praise them for their persistence. You know you should be proud of yourself. You keep on going, and then, of course, you praise them for their persistence. You know you should be proud of yourself. You stuck to it and look, you did it. You did it. All right, let's move on to the next one.

Speaker 1:

Your children need to learn that everything in life is not going to come easily to them. That's just not how life works. But if they try, if they persevere, if they break into small steps, that giant mountain can be more easily scaled. All right, let's talk about learning a new skill in sports. So maybe you have a child that wants to play basketball, and so they decide I'm going to join a team, but I'm going to dribble a little bit at home and practice out in the front yard or the backyard and they dribble a little bit, but they feel like they're losing control and they're getting frustrated. And we've all heard this I'll never be able to do this. Never Same thing. Let them understand. It's a skill, they're learning it. It takes time and you know you can maybe set a schedule with them and say, okay, five minutes a day, that's all. Five minutes, that's all I want you to do just dribble five minutes a day. So you've broken that down and you've given them a task, or they can come up with the time themselves, depending on their age. But here's the beauty of this they start out with five minutes and then, as they start getting better and better and better at it, they're going to want to do longer. So they're going to take that initiative to stretch that time out that they're practicing and, of course, encourage them to do that. You know.

Speaker 1:

Talk to them about the famous athletes. You know, you all know the story of Michael Jordan. Didn't make the high school basketball team In fact, he's from Wilmington, where I live Didn't make the team, from Wilmington, where I live. Didn't make the team. Then he was, you know, cut. I mean, you know he had all sorts of challenges. He did not stop and look where he is today. Now, not that your child is going to be a Michael Jordan, or maybe they are but the point is they kept at it. It didn't just happen overnight. It takes a year sometimes to master a skill like that. Do small bite pieces, then celebrate that progress, and then that helps them stay motivated, because when they're successful they want to continue. I mean, that just makes common sense.

Speaker 1:

Think about yourself. You're at work, you have an issue you have to deal with or a project, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is overwhelming. I don't know how I'm going to do this. Are you kidding me? I don't have time. There's just me. They don't pay me enough to do this and they expect me to do the work of five people. And you start talking to yourself and getting yourself all overwhelmed. But if you stop and go, okay, I've got to get this done. This is part of my job and if I want a paycheck, I have to do this. Let's break this down to small steps. What can I do first? What do I need to do first? And you do that, and then you add the next piece and the next piece and before you know it, you're done. Okay. And then you're like you know what? That wasn't as bad as I thought it was. And guess what? Now I know a new skill. I have learned new skills.

Speaker 1:

Let me just tell you, when I started on social media like three years ago, had no idea what I was doing, had never done it before. I just decided one day I'm going to get on social media and start talking about at first it was initially child care, then I switched over to parenting and I still don't know what I'm doing. Quite honestly, I don't understand all the algorithms and all the tech stuff, but every single day I get up and I create reels and I post them. And then I decided, hmm, I'm going to write some e-books and some books, put them on Amazon, put them on Kindle. Now do you think I knew how to do that? Nope, had no idea, but I didn't let it stop me, I figured it out.

Speaker 1:

The podcast Now I have done a podcast before. I did one a couple years ago for about a year. It was focused on child care. Had no idea what I was doing, did not know how to do a podcast, I just knew I wanted to do one. So I researched it, I figured it out.

Speaker 1:

Did I make mistakes? Sure I did. Did I get frustrated some days? Oh yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Especially when you do something and accidentally delete the whole thing. Oh yeah, but did I stop? No, no, because I was tough perseverance when I was a child, like my father would say you don't quit, we're not quitters here, you keep moving, you keep going, figure it out, don't quit, we're not quitters here, you keep moving, you keep going, figure it out. So I learned to persevere and it has served me all through my life.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes I'll be honest with you I'll look at things and go, oh my gosh, it's so overwhelming to think about that. Then I stop and go. You know it's not. You know what I'm making it overwhelming in my mind? Because I'm telling myself it is. It's really not so if I just break it down into steps.

Speaker 1:

So you take that same approach with your child, you know and say I know it might seem overwhelming to you, but it really isn't. All this is is a project or a problem. We have to figure out how we're going to work our way through. That's all. It's not that big of a deal.

Speaker 1:

So when you teach them using these different scenarios, I hope gave you some examples and you can apply these to your own situations with your children. But encourage them to keep trying to break those tasks down into small, bite-sized pieces to celebrate those small successes. And when they learn to do that, that helps them develop resilience and grit, and those skills are going to help them overcome obstacles now in their life but also empower them to face much bigger challenges with confidence as they grow. And be sure to hop on next week when we're talking about adaptability. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Common Sense Parenting with Pam. I hope you enjoyed the episode and, if you did, please leave a review. That helps other parents find us, and if you have friends who also have children and could use some parenting tips, feel free to share this. I would really appreciate it and you know I'd love to hear from you, so you can always find me on my socials. And until then, remember, hug and love your babies.