Being a parent is one of the most difficult jobs, but it is also one of the most rewarding jobs of our lives. When your child is a baby, especially those difficult times when babies can be very demanding, it feels like those difficult moments may never end. However, as with most things, you overcome them, and as we overcome each challenge we build resilience.

This is the same for your child. If your child does not encounter any challenges along the way, how can we expect them to overcome any challenge, know how to deal with them, and deal with them confidently? Challenges help us grow stronger. When we take away those challenges because we don’t want our children to get upset and become emotionally upset, it is important to recognize that we may be taking away the opportunities to help them grow. Safety is always number one, but remember that your child needs challenging situations to grow stronger and gain skills that will help them for the rest of their lives.

Remember that your child is a child until they are 18 years of age, at which point they become an adult. Parenting is a lifelong endeavour and therefore, your support for your child, will continue even as though they are adults. As your child moves through to adulthood, how will they be able to handle the challenges faced in front of them? Adulthood lasts a long time. The skills that our children build during the formative years (0-5 years), childhood (5-13 years) and adolescence (13-18 years) carry them into adulthood. We, as parents, also went through the same stages. Think about your own upbringing and the challenges you faced. If our children face challenges and adversity, our role as parents can help them face those challenges by giving them tools to build their skillset to help them build resilience. If we don’t let them face these challenges and adverse situations, are we limiting their ability to maximize their potential? Challenges are extremely important and often time, parents attempt to remove those challenges with good intentions without realizing the detrimental effects on their child’s development. Consider that we are developing not only children but future adults, and it is important to consider our role in their development. Parenting is not always easy, but remember that the choices we make during the developmental years have lasting effects that lasts throughout their lives.

When we look at our lifespan, we are children from birth to 18 years of age. We are adults from 18 years to 90 or 95 years or more if we are lucky. Some people live to be over 100 years of age. That means that if we live to be 100 years of age, 18% of it is childhood and 82% is adulthood. The skills that we learn in that beginning 18% helps with the remaining 82%. As parents, our goal is to raise children who will become independent, functioning members of society who will help to contribute to the community they are a part of. We need to guide and nurture them in facing each challenge so that they can build a solid skillset that will help them be strong and resilient so that they will be ready face any challenge with humility and grace.

Having boundaries and limits in place helps to bring understanding to our children’s lives that can extend into their adult lives. Therefore, it is important to always consider the choices that we make as parents. Every choice we make as parents impacts our child’s development. This is an exciting opportunity to develop robust skillsets in our children. Final thoughts to consider: If our children do not learn boundaries when they are young, what impact does will this have on how they face opportunities that they may face in the future? Each person make their own choices and when our children are small, we can guide and teach them about the consequences (positive or negative), but as adults, those consequences may be much more severe, especially if the choices were not good choices. As your child’s teacher this year, I feel privileged to have a minor role in your child’s development.

If you are interested, I wrote an article that was published in January 2022 by the European Journal of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Please click here for the link if you are interested in reading it. https://www.europeanpublisher.com/en/article/10.15405/ejsbs.309