Let The Children Struggle
Instead of mowing a path of ease for our kids, perhaps we let them suffer a little longer and discover the opportunities within each hardship.
Edith Eger, a psychologist and Holocaust survivor, is one of the most qualified people to advise us on enduring pain and suffering. In her work, she shares much wisdom about how to perceive and live through despair. “Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift,” she writes in The Choice: Embrace The Impossible. “They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.”
In our culture, we instinctually avoid suffering—and rightfully so. Evading suffering is a way we survive. But the “suffering” I speak of here is primarily discomfort. According to psychologist Denise Fournier, “We aren’t wrong for wanting to avoid feeling pain. It’s a perfectly human, perfectly natural thing to do. It just turns out to be ineffective.”
Our pursuit of “the good life,” however—a life that we perceive to be free of discomfort and hassle—makes us treat all difficulties as unnecessary nuisances obstructing our path to a better version of ourselves. When that pain comes for our kids (student-athletes, mentees, personal children, etc.), we sometimes sense heartache awaiting them, and we strongly desire for them to have a better life than we did, so we create shortcuts around their struggles.
But we do them a disservice by carving out paths around their discomfort and heartbreak instead of teaching and allowing them to work through them. Pain, struggle, suffering, discomfort, and inconveniences—or however you want to classify them—are all necessary for growth, and we’re stunting student-athletes growth by blocking them from it.
In The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, writer Douglas Abrams recorded the Dali Lama discussing how “Suffering is what makes you appreciate the joy.” As the Dali Lama was speaking, Abrams recorded his thoughts on how shortcutting a child's struggles for them can be detrimental and even potentially deadly:
“I could not help thinking of how we try so hard, with our natural parental instinct, to save our children from pain and suffering, but when we do, we rob them of their ability to grow and learn from adversity. I recalled psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger saying that the spoiled, pampered children were the first to die at Auschwitz. They kept waiting for others to come save them, and when no one came, they gave up. They had not learned how to save themselves.”
Allowing children to endure difficulties of all sorts helps them build perseverance. Just think about life lessons you learned (and are learning) had it not been for struggles and hardships. Even if you’ve lived a life of relative ease, your birth came with some discomfort, effort, and adversity you’ve endured. Without enduring a struggle you wouldn’t be reading this.
So when we circumvent all the issues or problems our student-athletes face by making their path as effortless as possible, we rob them of the opportunity to grow mentally tough. Our kids deserve better. However, if we are going to teach children to endure hardships by allowing them to struggle, it is doubly meaningful for us to model it.
But how can we model contentment in hard times when we’ve made it a practice to spin into fits of anger or impatience at the most superficial inconveniences ourselves? Can we change and be a model of enduring adversity for the children, or is it too late?
Even the virtuous Archbishop Desmond Tutu asked this question. How can one be joyful while dealing with everyday challenges alongside the persistent horrors worldwide? According to the Archbishop, endurance amid suffering lies in our abilities to find meaning in our suffering. “Without meaning…suffering seems senseless,” he said to Douglas Abrams. “But when we can find a shred of meaning or redemption in our suffering, it can ennoble us.”
As a coach or an athlete, the purpose of the suffering we gladly endure through workouts and competitions is always immediately apparent. There is something we are attempting to achieve on the other end of that discomfort. Even if we don't achieve it, we know we're better after enduring the process. But when we step off the field, track, or court and we have to deal with life, the meaning of those struggles is not always so obvious.
The pain we endure in life is helping us grow in generosity and gratefulness, and it is refining us. If we find no immediate meaning in our suffering, we can hold on to these two possible purposes. “There are very few lives that just move smoothly from beginning to end. They have to be refined,” according to Archbishop Tutu.
The generosity is the lesson we pass along to others (i.e., the younger generation who is indeed watching us), and the refinement is to help clarify the bigger picture of life. Our circumstances can always be worse than their current state, and we often have more than enough to meet our needs.
The practice of taking our attention to someone else and off our problems don’t feel good at the moment, and there’s no easy way to avoid the discomfort. But remembering the purpose of our affliction can strengthen and help us to press into and through the aches and annoyances associated with growth.
Whether you're a frustrated coach, athlete, or parent struggling with discomfort, you have hope because your struggle has a purpose. If you're not getting enough playing time, or your team isn't performing up to your standards, or your child isn't the superstar, we can remind ourselves in those moments that these are growth opportunities. We all have the chance to grow by enduring our suffering and finding reasons to be grateful for our refinement.
So instead of mowing a path of ease for our kids, perhaps we let them suffer a little longer, learn how to persevere, and discover the opportunities embedded within each hardship. Let the children struggle. It’s one of the best natural gifts we can give them for their growth.