Not too long ago, after a class, I approached a parent and informed them that their child was falling behind in class. Their response was, “I can’t get him to practice. I keep asking him to and he won’t do it.”
Two weeks ago, a parent asked me if her child could test and move to the “Intermediate / Advanced Class” because her child is getting bored. (Her child is a No-belt who has been with me for two twelve-week sessions). I said, “Your child is getting better at the basics, but he still doesn’t know the “Student Pledge”. In front of his mother, I told the child that he could not earn ANY rank or move forward until he learned the pledge. In front of her, he promised that he would memorize it.
Yesterday, I asked the child to start the class by reciting the “Student Pledge”. He could not because he still did not know it. In both of those instances instead of the children being made to do something, the children could choose not to do it. (Before you get “bent out of shape” about the phrase “made to do something” understand this, made does not mean brutalized, it means being sat down and told why it is important to keep the commitment they made.)
A new beginner class started at the beginning of January 2021; I had twelve children sign up. Of the twelve children that signed up, I have four still coming (a drop of two thirds).
I wish that I could blame the drop on something other than what it is, a lack of child supervision and parental support, but the fact is currently children are placed in a “sink or swim, you’re on your own” situation more times than not by their parents. What triggered the exodus was my insisting that everyone learns the student pledge by a certain date.
Interestingly, this is not a new phenomenon. In the eighties, when I asked a young girl why her Mather was not signing her “To Do List” on the back of her “Class Card” she responded by saying, “My mom says that she doesn’t have time for this and won’t sign it.”
This is not to say that her mother did not want the best for her, all parents do. The problem, though, is that adults are overwhelmed with other stuff and do not have additional time to help their child participate in a sport. So, most children are left to fend for themselves.
The problem is that martial arts is not a sport, it is a way of life. In other words, if a child is to do well in martial arts, he/she must take what they are learning and use it in their day-to-day lives, things like courtesy, respect, discipline etc.
Here is a comparable example of how martial arts works and a reality check! Back in the eighties, I thought that it would be a great idea to have a dog. As luck would have it, a friend of mine’s pit bull had just had a litter.
At first, I was apprehensive about having a pit bull because of their reputation of aggressive behavior, but I was assured that that was not, really, the case with pit bulls. In fact, most pit bulls, in the right environment, grow up to be sweet, lovable, loyal dogs that will do anything for its owner. What sold me was when I was made to realize that the dog “Petey” from “The Little Rascals” kids show was a pit bull. I took ownership of one of my friend’s dog’s litter.
After a few months (when the dog was old enough) my wife and I decided to get the dog trained to make sure that the dog would grow up to be obedient. It did not take us long, once we hired a trainer, to realize that the trainer was not really training the dog, she was training my wife and me. She would come to our house at the established time, get my wife and I together in the same room and teach us how to teach the dog.
Martial arts children training is conducted in the exact same way. In reality, parents are taught how to teach their children.
Back then my wife and I took offense to what the dog trainer was doing because in our minds we thought that she would come by, train the dog, and after a few weeks leave us with the finished product; we had no idea of how involved we would have to be.
In the martial arts universe parents have the same unrealistic mindset and expectation.
We not only stopped the lessons, but we also stopped working with the dog. In the end, he grew up to be too aggressive, and we had to have him put down. Till this day, I am sorry for what we did to that dog; are you doing the same thing to your child?
Martial Arts is not a magic potion that you give to someone, encourage them to drink it, and get the results that you desire, you must make it work! More specifically, adults must reinforce the things that the instructor teaches a child at home.
In my book: DAGPAW Means Success A Parent’s Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child At Home, in the discipline passage I take great pains to point out that discipline is environmental. You cannot have a child go to class and be exposed to discipline, then come home and be allowed to run amok and expect them to, somehow, be disciplined. It does not work that way. They must learn about discipline in class, then come home to a disciplined environment for it to root itself.
That means that the parent must create a disciplined environment for the child to exist in. In other words, parents must help their child get from martial arts what they want their child to get, unfortunately a lot of parents have a “here, you deal with him!” approach to seeking help from a professional.
Question: If children are unaware of their parent’s desire for them, why are so many of them expected to obtain the benefit that their parent wants without help from their parent?
It’s a recipe for disaster! Being a parent is hard work! It means that you must be willing to give your child, at any given moment, your most valuable commodity: time.
Children make decisions based on whether they are having fun or not; a lot of adults make decisions about what their child can do based on convenience.
When I taught seminars at Elementary Schools in Arlington to auditoriums full of children one of the things that I would try to impress upon them was that the first twenty years of life are the most important, because those are the years that they arm themselves with the skills necessary to be a success. In reality, no amount of talking to a child will bring about the desired effect of acquiring necessary skills to get the things that they will want when they grow up. They need to be guided and supervised by a parent at home where they spend two thirds of their time or more each day.
I would like to take a moment to thank all of you readers for your support and your loyalty. Without you, I would not have been able to survive the pandemic. May you have everything that you want and want everything that you have.
—- MB