“Daddy, I don’t know how…” Why Giving Up Too Soon is Bad for Your Kids

This article is part of a mini-series by Dr Henry Toi (Affiliate Director of the Institute for the Habits of Mind) who will share and explain the ways you can guide your children to cultivating good, lifelong habits.

Sometimes when life gives you lemons, you think ,“That’s alright, I’ll live. I’ll go make some lemonade.” But other times, life gets a little more adventurous and throws a spanner or two in the works. The tough gets going, but can you blame the ones who break?

It’s not just us grown-ups, kids behave the same way too. While teaching kids, I observe that some children give up almost immediately when they encounter a small problem, like when a pencil breaks or when they have forgotten to bring an eraser. They see the problem, and they cry, walk away, or just slump on the table. And yet, there are those who have seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their way, and charge ahead.

I remember speaking at a primary school some time ago. Before the talk, the principal had informed me that one of the female students was paraplegic. He said that the student would appreciate it I did not go go out of my way to assist or single her out, which would make her uncomfortable. Although well-informed of the situation, I admit feeling quite taken aback to see her in the flesh.

There she was, a little nine-year-old girl, being pushed in by her friends in a wheel chair, with four stumps where her limbs were supposed to be. And yet, she looked happy and energetic, joking and laughing with her friends like any of her peers. There wasn’t a single trace of self-pity or suffering or any of that in her demeanour. I had entered the hall meaning to teach, but I ended up learning something powerful, and feeling infinitely humbled.

Helplessness is Something We Pick Up and Learn

So how is that some people persist so beautifully while others just fall through the cracks? Professor Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania and his team of  researchers who conducted studies on learned helplessness discovered that people generally react in 3 different ways when faced with a crisis.

Team A never recovers. They become weakened in their resolve and strength to face future crises. Team B bounces back to their same, old self, and is basically left unchanged by the events. Team C becomes even more resolute. They develop new strengths to better cope with future difficulties.

How Can We Be More Like Team C?

The very good news is, everyone can be taught to behave like Team C. Below are three distinct differences in the way Team C perceive and tackle their problems.

Firstly, they view problems as temporal, they know hardships would not last forever. This fuels their optimism and gives them enough hope to believe that they have the power to make things right. Then they take concrete steps to solve their problems because no matter how small, they believe that each action can make a difference.

What this group demonstrate is taking ownership of their situation, instead of passively waiting for external factors to provide aid.

Across genders, race, nationalities and professions successful people exhibit the behaviours of the third group. It’s not hard to recognise the same positive traits in political figures like Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela and the late Lee Kuan Yew. Similarly in sports, we too applaud the heroic comeback of Para Games athlete, Jason Chee.

How did they come to have such determination? They were certainly not born with it. But somehow, somewhere, sometime, these successful people learned the three key success factors of persisting to the end.

Persist in the Little Things

Some children find learning a second language an arduous task. The next time they grumble about it, tell them that each lesson is only 30 minutes (it does not last forever), tell them that they can take short notes to learn better (a little something to make things right), and tell them that they will have to attend the class (taking concrete action). After persisting for a few lessons, it would become habitual.

At some point remind your children how many lessons they have attended. Help them to build up a storehouse of memories on how well they persisted. These could be related to learning to play a musical instrument, training for a sporting event or picking up a new language. Encourage them to use these memories as a wellspring of strength to draw upon the next time they come across another problem to overcome. To sum it up.

When you can complete the easy tasks, anything harder seems possible.

When you can’t complete the easy tasks, everything else just gets harder.