How can a softball pitcher keep her focus and retire the side when getting shelled on the mound while the runs are adding up?
How can a speech and debate competitor keep his composure when he loses his train of thought?
How can the teenage part-time restaurant hostess manage a growing crowd of hungry, impatient diners when there just aren’t enough tables to go around?
How can the student body president get the cabinet back on track when there’s dissent in the ranks and nobody seems to want to work together anymore?
How can a test-taker stay calm and forge ahead when the last three questions have left him rattled and questioning his level of preparation?
There may be more than one viable way to overcome those challenges. But in each circumstance, the student needs to go through the experience to learn how. And a parent stepping in to handle it for them? That option was never even on the table.
But where else in your student’s life does that option remain? And more importantly, where could you use the challenge as an opportunity to help your student learn, grow, and emerge better prepared to handle the next inevitable challenge?
Parents—and students—where else could you take the option off the table?