Family Life Skill: Parental Involvement

Parent involvement focuses can greatly improve a child’s self esteem, confidence, and over all ability in martial arts (and any other sport, for that matter).  Since the beginning of time, children have had parent leaders that have directly shown them how to hunt, prepare meals, and treat other people.  These days, we don’t hunt, mom prepares meals while little Johnny plays video games, and most social interactions happen at school with supervisors or in the neighborhood with minimal supervision (if any).  To help your child build character, try doing some martial arts kicks, strikes, and blocks with them.  Teach them a self-defense move.  Show them how much you care by telling them not to use these on their friends, family members, or pets – but to use them to protect themselves and the people they care about.

Coaching your child in a positive way is an excellent way to boost self-esteem.  The definition of self-esteem is an attitude that describes the way you feel about yourself.  When a child works with their parent and they get better, it creates a bond.  It shows how much the parent cares about them by doing a physical and primal activity.  This will inspire and motivate your child on a deep genetic level!  I will relate this to the ancient Greeks living in Sparta.  From the time they are born, they learn to fight.  Teachers show them martial arts and their fathers continuously test them on a daily basis.  The Spartans and Greeks were incredibly disciplined and had a territory that proved it.  After working out with your child, you’ll send them to school and practice with a higher level of self-esteem.

The confidence for a child to stand up for himself, try new things, truly believe in himself can be improved with parent involvement!  When a child is faced with a problem at school that is really hard, they may feel like they can’t do it.  When they come home, they will know that after a few minutes of working on the problem with mom and dad, it will be a piece of cake!  Or, if mom and dad don’t understand, you can show your leadership by searching on the internet to find the answer, calling one of your (smarter) friends, or searching for a tutoring service.  That shows incredible leadership!  Do you understand that children in the future will never have to search far for ANY ANSWER they want??  When I am stumped about anything, I can google-search it on my iphone – anywhere!  What an amazing resource!  When it comes to martial arts, kids see things that they WISH they could do but know they can’t.  We can easily turn the “Can’t” into “Can’t yet.”  Inspire your children by training with them a little bit every day and then search on Youtube for really incredible martial artists doing ridiculous stunts.  Then, ask your instructor for tips on training with your child!  You might want to send your child through some private lessons first to get the basics. 

By training with your children at home, you help to boost their self-esteem and improve their confidence.  Their overall ability improves and so does their mood.  Strengthen the bond you have with your child by sharing something that they love with them – as a leader.  Here are some resources I think will inspire you:

A couple youtube videos about the curriculum we’re doing this cycle:

Here's one step #1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0J2mRc2wBg
Here's one step #2:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlWU_DaKQj0

Check out the HYPER website (HYPER TV).  After you’ve seen all the free videos, purchase some training session DVDs so you can work on new stuff together!

http://hypermartialarts.com/hyper-tv/

Good training Tools for at-home coaching:

Pork chop pads

Square hand targets

Big pads such as wavemasters XXL, BOB Bags, and shields for power

Rebreakable boards

Curriculum DVDs

Purchase these items in our ATA Pro Shop (located in the storage room, soon to be in the lobby at ATA Elkton!)