Life isn't always easy.
We know that.
But, do our kids know that?
Sometimes, it seems that kids don't realize that life is just plain hard. Maybe that's because they have yet to experience true difficulties (not the case for everyone) or perhaps it is because as parents we will often try to protect them from the hardships of life. While there is nothing wrong with working hard to give our children a happy and fulfilling life, sometimes this can work to our detriment if we never teach them how to do hard things.
One of the reasons we work hard to push children physically at Thrive Kids is because we believe the more you do hard things at the gym, the better prepared you will be to do hard things outside the gym. When a child has completed a tough workout that was both physically and mentally challenging, we work hard to help them relate this experience to a time outside the gym when they may have felt like quitting or a time when things just seemed too hard. We work to relate the things we do at Thrive Kids with real life experiences because we strongly believe that a strong body is worthless without a strong mind. Obviously, this does not mean our children will not have problems outside the gym (if only that were the case!) but our goal is to help them see that when these problems arise they have the skills in order to work to solve the problem.
The more we can push children to overcome a challenge in a safe space, the more willing they will be to feel confident to take on a new challenge in all spaces. We work hard to create an environment where the child knows without a doubt their worth is not tied to their actions - we don't change the way we treat them just because they can or cannot complete a movement - so they are ready and willing to take on whatever task we present before them.
There's no way to know what our children will face in the future. There's no way to know what problems and tasks they will be asked to complete. But, we can work today to help children realize they can solve problems and they can overcome obstacles and they can achieve their dreams by working hard to be their best self.
Thrive Kids. Working every day to build strong bodies AND strong minds.