As a parent, I see it as my job to introduce, practice and encourage the development of skills that will help my daughter throughout her life. This isn't always easy, because it is hard to know what the future holds, so which skills will be valuable is a little up in the air. However, I suspect that interpersonal skills will be valuable, where it will be important to be able to interact well with people, plus be able to "read" their words and behaviours. I feel that the more people are on screens, the more gullible they are becoming, in part because they aren't developing the skills to recognise when someone is bending the truth for their own gain.
One skill is obvious though.
Don't panic.
We have this thing in our family we have dubbed "chicken panicking" where essentially something happens and the reaction is to run around bewildered, like a chicken with its head cut off. We have deemed this a negative reaction, because when stressed or panicked, it is usual that either bad decisions are made, or sometimes worse, no decisions are made.
I suspect that we all panic under high enough immediate stress, like having someone jump out from behind a corner when unexpected. However, I think that the recovery time can be shortened, so that a clear decision can be made with thought, rather than from panic. Or in some cases, the pattern recognition of the situation kicks in and reacts thoughtlessly with a pre-planned action - like soldiers.
We don't have a military family, however I do think that learning how to behave under pressure is a highly useful skill to have in the toolbox. To do this though, it takes pressure to create the situation. At the moment, the pressures for Smallsteps have been organically created, where for instance a few months ago a smoke alarm went off unexpectedly and as it was a very loud sound (she has a sensitivity I believe) she wasn't expecting nor had heard before, she really did dance around in the spot like a headless chicken.
This is not an ideal response.
Nor was it a high risk situation, but for her young life lacking a lot of experience, it was enough of a wakeup call to remind her that chicken panicking solves nothing. Her parents have been in enough events to not panic at this kind of small thing and then just go through the steps to evaluate the situation and act, but we have also gone through far more threatening situations that have required calm, when every part of our body wanted to panic, breakdown, and cry.
We discuss these various lessons as a family afterward, because in the moment there is far too much going on to have the lesson right there and then. But in those moments, we can always say, "Don't chicken panic" and it is able to bring our attention quickly back to the needs of the moment, rather than the fears of the moment.
Solve the immediate problem first.
Process the relevant feelings later.
A lot of people are looking to "calm their mind" as a way to relieve their general levels of stress, but I think we also have to understand that a lot of life is unexpected and can come as acute stress as well. This means that we have to learn how to manage our emotional selves at a general level for daily life, and have strategies that we can apply very quickly for the unexpected events that happen all too often.
Our bodies grow under stress and require recovery, the faster we can recover, the more we are able to carry. Our mind is much the same, so the faster we are able to focus it, the faster we are able to apply it effectively again. Cutting that time down is pretty easy, but it takes practice and repetition, not only knowledge. Yet, in today's environment, we seem to avoid the practice and repetition we need to learn the personal skills, because learning is uncomfortable, and rarely fun.
No one likes to be in a panic though, so why do so few of us prepare so we aren't?
Maybe we are too chicken.
Taraz
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