Few of us are born with bravery. Instead, becoming brave is learned in the small moments where we persevere, in the hard moments where we fail, and in the challenges we take on.
Whether it’s climbing to the top of the slide, trying new foods, asking someone out on a date, or heading to sleepaway camp, our children have plenty of opportunities to become brave - if we let them. Read more about what it means to be brave on The Scoop.
Chances are, you’re hoping your child turns out to be brave – to take on challenges and face fears, to climb proverbial mountains and defend a friend on the playground. But how do you get there?
Bravery is defined as “having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.” Notice how it doesn't say avoiding danger, fear, or difficulties. Bravery is the act of getting through it. If you’ve heard me speak on this topic, you may know that one of my favorite children’s books, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, offers the perfect visual for this message. When it comes to hard moments we can’t go over them, we can’t go under them, we can’t go around them, we’ve got to go through them. Being brave means doing something that is right, necessary, or important to you despite the fear. It’s going right through.
Young children look to their parents to interpret the world around them. Social referencing refers to the idea that our children pick up on our cues and understand our reaction to something before they decide on theirs (think: looking at you before they touch something they shouldn’t, or waiting to see how you react when they fall). Just as they do in millions of moments, your children look to you to decide what is scary and what they can manage. As a result, helping them to be brave means projecting confidence in their ability to do hard things. Showing confidence in our children actually helps them to be confident. If you have faith in them, they will have faith in themselves. And if you show them you’re scared, well, they will be too. Ways to show confidence include statements like, “I know you know how to do hard things,” or “You’ve got this.” Even, “I believe in you” can help to empower them in a challenging moment.
In addition to displaying confidence in their abilities, there are a few other ways to promote bravery in your household. Many of these are also tips that support strong parent-child relationships and self-regulation, both of which are connected to skills that help children thrive in the face of adversity.
Make space for feelings. You’ve probably heard this advice about 1000 times before, but it bears repeating in a different way. Just like our bear hunt, think of yourself as teaching your children how to survive their feelings. You don’t have to let them sit in them (in fact, you shouldn’t), or allow them to weigh in on every decision (you still need limits), but showing your children that they can feel angry and get better, feel sad and have it pass, feel stuck and find a solution, all matters in building bravery. We have to go through the hard moments to be sure that we can do them again.
Learn from the past. Young children are not good at taking the lesson from one situation and applying it to another. That’s fairly sophisticated for them, and even takes some adults years to master (I can hear my mother saying, “You’ll learn the lesson one day”). In the meantime, you can use history to help them face a challenge by reminding them of times they felt this way (scared, sad, overwhelmed, nervous, etc.) and got through it. Maybe we say, “You didn’t know anyone at Bobby’s birthday party and were feeling just like this. But when you got there and saw all your friends and started playing, you had a really good time. I wonder if that will happen again?”
Or for older kids, “Do you remember feeling like this before? Maybe for a test, or the first day at school, or your big art show? What worked that time that we can try here?” You may also ask children to give advice to themselves the way they would for a friend. Try saying, “If one of your friends was in this situation (or felt this way), what would you tell them?” Often, children will give some pretty great advice (learned from you) and the act of saying it out loud will help them to actually hear it.
Find opportunities to take on challenges. Instead of shying away from hard moments, dig in. Step by step (and without pressure or expectation), encourage your child to find ways to practice these skills. Maybe they ask an adult for something in a store, try a new sport that they know nothing about, or taste a new food at grandma’s house. There are lots of small ways to feel brave. Be sure to notice and comment when you can like, “You tried something new and something hard. Do you feel proud?” Remember to help children feel pride in their own accomplishments, and not just in your praise.
Bravery, like everything else, isn’t mastered in a day. For most of us, our willingness to grow and stretch is tested constantly, as each new situation arises. Let’s model for our children that we can always rise to meet the challenges before us, and that we too can be brave when it counts.