The Lesson in a Child's Frustration and My New Toy Wish List!

My 5 year old was riding his bike while I was repairing some of my bike inter-tubes.  He was having trouble getting up the hill and despite my encouragement to "push it out" and to not give up, he was getting frustrated.  I finally gave the advice to go to the street and "go as fast as you can" to get up the driveway with momentum.  This worked for a little while.  This worked to the point that he was overshooting  and hitting the grass... Another problem, daddy!

Once his confidence grew, he decided to try the neighbor's driveway, which is a little steeper than ours.  He failed several times, and despite my encouragement and advice, he finally got frustrated and gave up... but this was no ordinary fail.

He got off his bike, walked it back to our house, then walked it out to the middle of our backyard, left the bike in the middle of the yard, stormed back to where I was, hit my car with his hand, threw his helmet on the ground, stomped into the house, hid in the corner with a pillow over his body and made several bursts of "humph!".

I tried several times to get him to discuss his feelings, but it wasn't until I brought out some "square cheese" that he finally got out from under the pillow.  After he calmed down eating his cheese, we talked about his frustration with not being able to get up the driveway.  He explained that his bike wasn't strong enough, I explained that maybe he just needed to keeping working at it so that he could get stronger.  He agreed to try again tomorrow, then I told him he needed to go get his bike and put it away.

Isn't that what we all need to do when we experience failure?  We need to be able to experience failure so that we know from where we need to build.  How else can we possible learn how to challenge ourselves?  If you've never challenged yourself, especially in failure, I encourage you to try again.  It's overcoming adversity that makes us who we are.

After this whole incident, my son and I went to Rita's Italian Ice.  He had his mango ice and I had some mint-chocolate-chip... as an added bonus, one of the teens from our church happened upon us.  This set up an excellent opportunity for my son to challenge us to a race.  We raced several times around the parking area, and, since he is the only one who knew the course, he won each race.  Afterward we went to Tractor Supply Company.

If you've never been to Tractor Supply Company with my son, it is an experience.  He loves the toy cars and tractors as well as all the equipment.  And it brought me to one of my wish-list items.  The pedal go-cart.  It reminded me of a rule my wife and I have had regarding my child's toys... especially the outdoor toys.  Namely, no motor powered toys.  In other words, all toys must be child-powered, with legs or arms.

Which brought to mind a couple of wish list items, you may or may not have ever heard of.


Elliptigo

This is an elliptical machine that is also a bicycle.  So, if you are a runner or a cyclist and have been told not to do your sport.  You can still get outside and away from the gym and get an amazing workout in the real world!

Pedal Go Cart

For those stingy parents who won't drop $200+ on a motorized child's toy which does nothing to develop their motor skills or muscles, you can drop $200 on something just as fun, but that requires leg-power to make it move.









One of these days, I plan to own and use these machines, but until then... I will continue riding my bike and running.  If you want to support me in fighting cancer in the Livestrong Philly Challenge, please click here.  We are almost half-way there!