Oakdale, New York
How to teach your own children is a mystery, and I wish I had the perfect answer for you. I do not. Teaching kids is already a challenge. Teaching your own is something else entirely. So instead of an answer, I am writing down my experiences, what I have learned from others, and, of course, what I have learned from my own mistakes.
First, it takes a lot of patience. Do not carry expectations that are too high. The most important thing in life is to help people, especially our children. We want them to become good people, real "Life Champions." That means we cannot put too much pressure on them.
And we cannot keep pulling our children into our world. We should be going down into their world instead. That is the only way to see as they see and feel as they feel.
A child does not have to train a sport every day. If they want to do it every day, believe me, they will ask for it. Our job is to make the door easy to walk through, not to push them through it.
Three things took me the longest to learn. I wrote them down so you can open them when you need them.
Some days your child is fearless. Some days the same child is afraid of everything. You will drive yourself crazy looking for the reason. Many times there is no reason to find, there is only a child having a day. Accept the day, stay close, and tomorrow is new.
You do not have to prove anything, and neither do they. When you are offering the best you can offer, and the child is doing the best within their limits, that is a good day, even if it looks small. Insisting on going beyond their limits can be catastrophic. The waves can also go against you.
This is the hardest one for a coach, and for a parent, and I am both. Children do not remember our speeches. They remember whether we were there and whether we heard them. Be an example by how you act, not by how you talk. They are always watching the first one and rarely the second.
I see this every week on our mats. The parents who get the most from their children are not the loudest ones on the sideline. They are the ones who show up, stay calm, and let the child come to them. If you want a place to practice all of this, our kids BJJ classes give you a front-row seat, and when the hard days come and your child announces they are done, I wrote you another letter for exactly that moment.
Be patient with them. Be patient with yourself too.
Kioto BJJ South Shore, Oakdale NY