🦥 Comfort is the Enemy of Growth

Today in 5 minutes or less you'll learn:

• Why should parents let children face hardship?

• 3 ways to build resilience in our kids

• How many chickens can you fit in a coop?

Comfort is the enemy of growth. Do you believe it?

Isn’t it ironic that if we reflect on our greatest accomplishments and proudest moments in life there was almost always a challenge or pain and suffering that occurred beforehand.

And yet for some reason as parents we often strive to remove all barriers for our children and make easy their path to success and accomplishment.

We naturally want to protect them from pain and hardship. However, experiencing these things are essential for their development and growth if we truly want them to be successful adults. Our job as parents is not to be there all the time for our kids. It’s to teach them how to handle uncertainty and problem solve.

It is challenging to do this since we live in the most comfortable and least pain tolerant culture in history, and we have to be intentional to fight this “disease” every day. Here are some examples of how comfortability has impacted our country and society as it relates to our physical and mental health.

According to Forbes a study between 2017-2020 found that 41.9% of Americans are considered obese. In fact, according to this Forbes health article the worldwide obesity rate has doubled since 1980. Wow!

Our mental health isn’t fairing much better according to this Johns Hopkins Medicine report.

-An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older -- about 1 in 4 adults -- suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

-Anxiety has become the number one mental health issue in North America

-an estimated 31% of adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life

Now that I’ve shared the doom and gloom stats - there is great news! There is much we can do to fight back against physical and mental health threats to our families. It starts with Resilience.

Resilience can be defined as “bouncing back from adversity” and is produced through facing and enduring challenges and pain. Building the resilience muscle will greatly improve our children’s physical and mental health at a young age.

Adversity is inevitable in our lives. We all know this. The more important question is how as parents can we build our child’s resiliency muscles in this world of comfort to set them up for success as adults.

Among many things here are 3 ways….

1. Model Resilience

The most important first step is to model resilience ourselves for our children. As we know they are always watching. Our children will take our lead, and we can’t expect to see in them what we aren’t doing ourselves.

So what does this look like….

-Share challenges you’re facing with your kids and how you’re handling it. You don’t have to let them think everything is perfect. Share with them the struggle and emphasize that instead of giving up or quitting how you chose to keep moving forward.

-When you make a mistake, admit it. You aren’t perfect either. You can respond by saying “I’m sorry I didn’t handle that well. Let’s talk about a different way I can handle that next time”.

-Do some physical fitness with the kids. Workout, lift, or run with them and let them see you facing a physical challenge and push through it. Discuss with them the benefits of this physical exercise and that the results don’t come without pushing through the pain or discomfort.

2.High, Low, Buffalo

Try this conversation starter the next time you’re sitting together at dinner. Ask your child to share their High, Low, & Buffalo for the day.

High- what was their favorite part of the day and what they most enjoyed. The highlight or “high” of the day.

Low- what was their least favorite part of the day and why?

Buffalo- use the analogy of a buffalo (bison) that faces a storm (challenge) when it comes. What is a challenge they faced or an obstacle that day that they had to choose courage to get through?

Asking this simple question will open up the doors for them to share about their day. You’ll even find them proactively wanting to do this over time. We do it often over family dinner, and the kids really enjoy it.

Instead of asking “how was your day at school” and getting the typical “good!” answer, give this one a try next time. It will allow you to build their resiliency muscle by encouraging them when they chose courage at a time during their day.

3. Let Them Fail 

I know this is one is tough to do. But one of the best ways we can help our kids learn resilience is allow them to fail. Failure is not the end of the world. In fact, any “successful” person will tell you it was essential to achieving their results.

What does that look like in real life? The next time they don’t want to do their homework, let them choose to do so and face the consequences at school of receiving a poor grade.

Or if they are in a sport and they want to skip practice and stay home, let them. Then allow them to face the consequence when the coach makes them sit out the next game or run extra at practice.

At the end of the day allow them to feel the weight of their decision and learn from it. This is the perfect time to do these things as it is a safe environment to learn. Instead of learning this as an adult when the consequences are much greater.

If you want to dig into this topic more check out this article here from a licensed social worker and psychotherapist who wrote a book on how to raise courageous and independent children.

The chicken coop has been ordered and will be arriving in approximately 6-7 weeks! We went with an Amish built coop from KT Barns out of Millersburg, Ohio.

The coop will be 8×20 feet. We went with this size as we plan to have approximately 50 birds on the farm. You should plan for at least 3 sq ft per bird in a coop. With that in mind we should be able to house up to 53 with this coop.

While it’s exciting to have the coop on its way. It’s time to prep the site location before it arrives. This will require removing small trees, brush, and digging out a rectangle 4” deep a little bit larger than the footprint and laying down some gravel where the coop will sit.

There are a lot of predators around the farm that love to eat chickens such as hawks, foxes, coyotes, and raccoons. Because of this we plant to install a covered run. It is recommended to have 10 sq ft per chicken for the run. Therefore, we will be building out an approximately 50’ x 20’ sized covered chicken run.

Plenty of work ahead on the farm. Stay tuned to the newsletter for pictures of the coop arriving and building the run.

Do you want to drink your coffee, tea, or other hot drink in style while reminding you and your family to choose courage and resilience?

If so this face the storm mug is the perfect one for you! Created by Silver Lake Bison Farm and handmade from start to finish by Two Ridges Pottery. Each mug is unique with small artistic differences.

Microwave and Dishwasher Safe. Holds approximately 14oz.

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