Yesterday I taught my son how to ride his bike or at least started to. He was so scared that he insisted that we didn’t do it. The first five minutes were him refusing to even try, but I found a reward big enough for him to want to try. We settled for fifteen minutes for the time to work. Then we had the trust phase where he made sure that I was going to be there and assist. We were not making any progress because his reliance on me was too much, and his fear of failure was all he was thinking about. I directed his thoughts not on failure, but onto him succeeding in the task. And so, it began. He started breaking through that fear. He kept saying “I can do this. I can do this” over and over and his ability to ride his bike was successfully increasing. I took him over to harder gravel and a place where he could make longer passes. I noticed that he kept looking in the direction of where he didn’t want to go. He kept looking at the pond or the gravel pit. My friend Butch’s kayaking advice rung true. “Do not look at what you don’t want to go towards.” After sharing this advice, he was off. And after he spent the time conquering his fears, he was so proud of his achievements and that he could do it. Today was not the day where I let go completely, but it was the day where he grew his determination and confidence to want to try again. Trying new things is scary, but the reward is a stronger sense of I can do a task especially when they are hard.
コメント