I know that I tend to write a lot about children and about what they should learn and be taught. Of course, I don't have children yet, so this may seem quite forward,to tell you what you should do with your own.
Only I'm not telling you, I'm simply writing an opinion based on my own life and experiences. The things I believe you – as a parent – should teach are things that I have learned, in my short life, and skills that I find to be particularly useful.
Good, now that that's out of the way, here we go.
Earlier today, I found myself telling my brother to be more gutsy. He's developed a habit of over-apologizing, which I just hate. He says 'sorry' for a lot of things and I always tell him there's no need to say 'sorry', that it wasn't a mistake or a bad thing, so he doesn't need to apologize.
You see this in a lot of kids. And the thing is, it's not just the kids. It's a habit that can show up at any age. Granted that it does depend on the type of person you are. Shy, introvert kids and adults are more prone to this over-apologizing than extrovert, more ballsy folks.
Do you do this? I know I do. Or at least did. I used to say 'sorry' for the silliest things that did not demand an apology and then the person I'd just apologized to would go 'But there's no need to' and then I'd be like 'Um, okay, sorry.'
See? It's a bad habit.
Which is why I've come to the conclusion that we should teach children from early on to be more ballsy. That way, not only are they better off in childhood, but also have lesser chances of becoming over-apologizers in adulthood.
How do we do this? Well, it's not just the job of the parents to teach this, to make children be brave. It's something everyone around a child can help build. Siblings – brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents – and friends, teachers, everyone who comes into contact with a child on a regular basis.
It's not about teaching a child that it's okay to act like a jerk, because it's really not. Don't teach him that it's alright to step over people or treat them like he owns them.
That's not ok.
And that's not what being ballsy is about.
It's about not feeling the need to apologize for every little thing that you do or that you think the other person doesn't agree with you. It's about daring to be “wrong”, it's about daring to be different.
Parents and teachers, as figures of authority, have a tendency to crush a child's daring and ballsier side, because they fear that that side will rebel against them, and of course, they can't have that. They don't want to raise gutsy children, because they will become gutsy adults, who dare to stand up for what they believe in, to stand up for their rights. And you can't have that in our society. And since we all live in this same society, we think it's wrong to raise daring children.
But it's not.
You need to teach them that it's okay to stand tall and to look you in the eye. I think that's a good place to start, if you hold some authority over a child, teach him that it's alright to question you or disagree with you. Teach them to say sorry when he truly does something 'wrong', but not turn it into a big drama.
But that can only work if you don't make big dramas out of every little mistake they make. Show them it's okay to be wrong, sometimes.
It's normal.
And they need to know it's alright to be able to stand up and be proud, they need to know how and that they can.
'Cause someone's going to do it and if you're going to make it in this world, you need good guts. And you need to be able to hold your own. Because if you don't, someone else will.
Show those kids how important it is to be fearless.
See, in Romanian, we have this word – pizdos. It's fun cause it's considered a bit of a dirty word, but it's not. It just refers to someone who has guts, someone who has balls.
Well...
Teach your children to be pizdosi.
