Amicably pummel your children - they’ll thank you for compelling them to face their fears

Mar 22, 2008

Amicably pummel your children - they’ll thank you for compelling them to face their fears

NOTE! If you enjoy this post, please feel free to share and twitter it with the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/2qa6x3 . Thanks, I appreciate it!

Quick! Imagine….Soul-devouring FEAR

Pretty scary, right? Now imagine something even worse….

Your child experiencing that same body-freezing paralyzing fear.

Utterly horrible, don’t you think? Entirely unimaginable; any parent would choose storm the gates of bloody Hell rather than let their child get hurt. But the sad reality is, life - it happens. There’s a high probability that at least one time, your kid will be bullied or picked up or thrust into a situation where the next 5 seconds determines whether he or she is beaten up and victimized…or manages to fight past the fear and change the outcome of the situation.

Ever wish you could give your kids the tools for fighting past that fear?

I was reminded of this quite starkly yesterday during my adult karate sparring class. The class (with yours truly included) had just finished ‘gearing up’ (ie, donning on protection pads including helmets, chest guards, hand guards, etc.), and I was against one of the best fighters in the dojo. As he knows that I pride myself on pushing myself past any boundaries I might have, he ratcheted up his intensity and landed some truly stunning kicks/punches to the head. Wow, I’ve never before experienced such a thing, and let me tell you, WHOMP! after 20 seconds or so, the immediate reaction was major mental panic on my part.

Now, true, I didn’t give into it. ‘Matter of fact, I went on to spar with 4 other great fighters, 2 of whom also acquainted my noggin with their metatarsals. By the third fight, I was crying on the inside of my spirit, but on the outside, I was doing my utter best to try and defend/attack.

Ever try to fight when every sense is screaming at you, you can’t handle it, give it up?

Let me tell, it’s more agonizing than discovering your child tried playing Frisbee with your iPhone! Not in a painful way, mind you…but when you’re forced to the very edge of your emotional being, you have two options:

Deal with it….or give up.

I chose to deal. After all, in a real fight, you kinda sorta can’t tell the bad guy,

"Ahem old chap, methinks I’m fatigued at this point, let’s call it a draw, shall we? Jolly good!"

After those 5 matches, I went back to the first guy and demanded, I want to spar with you again. I refused to allow panic to win; even though I was still shaking, I chose to face my fears (and hide the fact that if the building had been introduced to an earthquake at that moment, I’d probably prefer that) . Alas, by that time, time had run out….so my next match is Tuesday.

The class ended, and I met up with my kid who was doing Aikido. I’m very proud to announce that during the whole time, nobody in the adult class realized how utterly petrified I was (I hid it quite well!), but when we got into the car, I gave myself permission to break down and just let the emotions totally overwhelm me (I’m big on working through any emotion on this planet).

Talk about a teaching moment! I explained to my kid that being pushed that much ends up strengthening your soul/spirit an incredible amount….BUT the whole experience is utterly draining. Think "deers in the headlights before they’re hit by a speeding bullet train"….and you’re pretty close to how "with it" I was at that moment.

I’m not the only person in my family who spars. All of my kids take sparring as well; I don’t want the first time they have to use their fists to be in the school yard or boys bathroom or school bus etc. Any parents who think kids don’t fight in school are naive indeed, and there’s no way in hell MY kids will be a victim.

I want them to internalize:

What it’s like to face off
What’s it like to take a hit and NOT panic
That they have the courage within them not to quail and cry but to get themselves out of the situation with their health intact.

Which! brings me (finally!) to the point of this point.

I do NOT pummel my kids, of course. However, I DO make certain they attend sparring and martial arts classes and know not only HOW to fight, but also HOW to de-escalate a situation and walk away. If by chance they ever get into a negative altercation when I’m not around….they’ll know how to defend themselves and how to trust in their own abilities.

They’ve seen Mom totally out-classed in fighting…and yet refuse to give up and instead try to learn.

They’ve seen Mom get kicked flying across the floor and get up for more.

So they know:

If Mom can handle it, I sure can too!

Give you kids the self-confidence to defend themselves. Give them the calmness that comes from knowing that taking a hit DOESN’T mean the end of the world; they still possess the courage to fight past their fear and get themselves out of a situation safely.

Want to learn more about martial arts and kids? Check out:

Want to learn about getting past fear? Check out:

Fear is a fact of life. But it doesn’t have to be paralyzing and it doesn’t have to rule your life. When you force yourself to stand calmly in the howling emotional storm and yell back:

"I will NOT be overcome!"

you’ve taken yet another journey into building the strength and wisdom that resides in your very soul and spirit.

Give your kids that gift as well; they’ll thank you when they’re grownups and raising their own family. And that, of course, is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

ThankYouVeryMuch!

Owlbert

#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:

Beginners blogging tips: Fear happens. The challenge is how you deal with it.

Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips: Choose to learn from fear; do not give into it. Experience it, analyze it, and then let it go. It won’t come back to bother you again.

#END highlights of this blog writing post

Like this post? Please feel free to Digg It - I very much appreciate your time!

ps - Here’s a good example of kids sparring:

pps - and speaking of not fearing:

Fatal error: Class ‘expKrc’ not found in /home/lingling/domains/php/eBay_cls.php on line 161

(By the way, if you have any questions about the topics in this posting "Amicably pummel your children - they’ll thank you for compelling them to face their fears", do comment below - I'll try to clarify any issues).

Barbara Ling and Owlbert

If you find this blog posting useful, please feel free to share it below. And do feel free to let your friends know about it as well....I very much appreciate your time!