Teaching your kids to be Tough

I guess I’ve always been a bit strange, even when I was little. When every other kid wanted to be an astronaut, football star or famous celebrity of some kind, my dream on the other hand was to be a dad, have a family of my own with a loving wife and a bunch of kids. Of course you grow older and just like the 5 year old that wanted to be a fireman ends up having different dreams later on in life I went through that same process as well. But still, in spite of different careers and lines of work that idea always stuck with me as the core of what makes a happy life.

An important part of having a family is raising your kids well. Making them is easy enough (for some of us, for other it’s a painful and expensive process or not possible at all) but raising them takes time, patience and dedication.
I want my kids to be above all good, joyful people, and to me that means being tough and self-reliant. The world is a hard place, even in the not so hard parts of the world. The strong prevail and no one said life was supposed to be fair.

I try to teach that to my kids. That being strong, physically and mentally (especially mentally) is important and that they should strive to be that. Set your mind to it and it will be so. No, this does not apply to everything in life like the Left wants us to believe. A boy can’t be a girl anymore than he can be a flying pink unicorn. But tough? Yup, that’s all about mindset.

So last Friday I get that phone call no parent ever wants to receive: “we’re calling from your son’s school…” “he got hurt” … “come as soon as possible”.
I get to the school as fast as I can and I see my ten year old standing there waiting for me with a teacher. “Hi dad”. He was perfectly calm, looked perfectly fine… well… except for that finger…

Playing with his friends he tried to grab a kid as he ran away, got his finger caught in the kid’s tshirt, dislocating it.

I’m not particularly sensitive about these things but when it’s your kid it’s always different. I grabbed his bag and I told him he’s be fine, not to worry, we’ll get that fixed right away. He stopped my rant “dad! I’m fine. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt”. He was as calm as always. Maybe too calm. I though he was maybe in shock but as time went by I realized it was none of that. He’s just tough. Tougher than his old man, that’s for sure.

It took about an hour to get the bone back in place. The paediatrician that saw him first took an xray and didn’t dare touch it, he couldn’t tell for sure if it was broken or not. The trauma specialist arrived and after taking a look set the bone straight. My son didn’t complain once during the entire thing and kept saying that it didn’t hurt. Without any anaesthesia, he barely flinched when the doctor realigned the bone.

What can I say? I’m super proud of all my kids and I wanted to share this.
It’s not easy, takes time and sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re doing good for your kids but then these things happen and you can pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Teach your kids not to complain, to be strong and resilient. Teach your kids to COPE.
Last time we went hiking we went through some thorny brush (kinda did that on purpose) , got a few scratches here and there. When my youngest mentioned getting pricked I said “Its just a bit if pain, kids. It’s not as if you have a broken bone or something more serious”. When he later showed me a thorn stuck in his hand I told him that was perfect for practicing using the tweezers in his Victorinox. If you teach them to overcome small inconveniences then even when bones do get broken they will deal with it much better and the same will apply to other challenges and hurdles in life.

While I’m at it, I do have one small favour to ask. Wanting to be like dad, my son has his own little youtube channel. English is his second language and I encourage him to practice it as much as possible.  I’d appreciate if you dropped by and liked a video of his, maybe leave a word of encouragement.

Thanks!

FerFAL

Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”