Why I Helped My 8 Year Old Son Have Some Big Problems
Posted on September 3, 2016
Why I Helped My 8 Year Old Son Have Some Big Problems
Looking up at me over his bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, his favourite breakfast cereal, my very privileged 8-year-old son said “Mummy, the biggest problem I have is that I haven’t had any waffles lately!” Silently I wondered if this was bigger than yesterday’s big problem of catching certain Pokémon or last week’s big problem of not being allowed on his iPad as much as he would have liked. I pondered this problem briefly and I responded “you need to have some better quality problems.”
My son is a white male, living in a middle class home, who attends a private school and has had all the opportunities that he could ever want. He’s never gone without anything, except perhaps all you can eat waffles and as much iPad time as he would like…
You might well think “spoilt brat”, or even ask “what’s his problem?” Or, if you too have children like my son you’re probably smiling to yourself over your cup of tea as you read this thinking “yep, the First World problems our kids have to deal with”.
The truth is, as I explained to my son, we all have problems. We need challenges, that’s how we grow, it’s how we learn and it’s how we develop resilience.
There’s no growth, learning or resilience in a vacuum, they don’t arrive on your door step wrapped in a bow, they come about through overcoming challenges.
I went on to explain that there’s not a person in this world who does not have a problem. People who don’t have money have problems, so do wealthy people. Stay at home Mums have problems, so do working Mums. Kids in privileged homes have problems, so do kids in poor homes, and when no real problems exist – we create them. We humans are just like that. We need the challenge!
What my son was experiencing is no different from many other children. In my efforts to be a great Mum and to give him all of the opportunities and experiences I could I was actually robbing him of his need for problems! So, I helped him have some problems that he had to overcome.
Better Quality Problems
The first problem I gave him: I will no longer be his slave! If he forgets his hat, or even his lunch box, I will no longer take it to school for him. He needs to learn to be responsible for his own stuff! This might sound harsh to some parents and believe me the first day I saw his school hat sitting on the table after he left it took great self-control to just leave it there and not take it to him. You know what, when I picked him up from school that day he had found a hat that he could borrow for the day (he had solved his problem) and, next day, he remembered his hat.
The next problem I gave him was the responsibility of getting himself ready for school. Every school morning for as long as I can remember I’ve spent the whole time nagging, reminding, encouraging, getting cranky with my son as he would dawdle through the morning with no care about time. He’s 8 and has been able to read a clock for a couple of years now. His morning routine is very simple, not much is required of him AND, he knows the time we need to leave. So I simply said to him “OK, from this point forward I will not nag you, I will not remind you and I will not grump at you. You and you alone are responsible for making sure you’re ready for school and I will take you when you’re ready. I’ll make sure that your lunch is packed and I’ll make sure that I’m ready at 8am, the rest is up to you”. Not only have our mornings been so much happier and less stressed but, he’s never been late for school.
So far these have been pretty lightweight problems, hardly earth shattering but learning personal responsibility, I believe, is a gift for life. It was time to up the anti…
The Big Problem
I set my son a task: “at school today I want you to go to the library at lunch time, I want you to find a BIG problem, it can be a school problem, it can be a people problem, it can be a world problem, I don’t mind but you need to find a big problem that we can work together to find a way to improve.”
We know that we will always have problems, as long as we’re alive there will be challenges so, we can either wait to see what shows up, in which case we are at the whim of the universe or in coaching terms we are “at effect”. When we are at effect we believe that we have no control over our problems, they just show up in our life and we have to deal with them. Or, we can choose to chase bigger, better quality problems, in this case we get to choose our problems, in coaching terms we call this being “at cause”. When we’re at cause we believe that we are responsible for what shows up in our lives and as a result we have control over what we bring into our lives and how we deal with it.
If we know that there will always be problems, why not chase the great quality problems? Why not go after the big juicy challenges like global warming, endangered animals, school bullying, teenage depression, anxiety and self-harm. Why not set your sights on the challenge of ending poverty or on providing education and protection to kids in third world countries? Or even much closer to home, why not start a food drive to help out families less fortunate? I know some of these issues are a bit big and daunting for an 8 year old and I certainly didn’t suggest all of these to him, but for older kids or even adults, if your biggest problems could be considered “First World problems”, it’s time to get yourself a better quality problem.
As for my son, he loves tigers and he knows that some tigers are endangered. With some help he went and did some research on why tigers are endangered and what could be done to help them. Then he started a group at school where they would raise money to send to the World Wildlife Fund to support the tigers.
By helping my son to have a “better quality problem”, to take on the challenge of a “bigger problem”, his First World problems ceased to be an issue and he’s developing leadership skills, passion and compassion for wildlife and global issues and gaining life skills along the way.