“Making it to the top of a discipline is realistic if you put in enough passion, make life choices that allow for a certain outcome and then try, think and train your way there. So trying, thinking and training leads to relaxed and elegant performance is the motto of our little world school.”
Our kids are normal. Not overly smart or athletic, just normal healthy boys. We enjoy the sweet glow of parental pride when they show some early promise and we are a little concerned when they laze around or game a little too much for our liking - just like any other parents.
Our family may approach some things a little differently and what works for us and our kids may not work for other families. We hope our reflections will inspire you to realise that things can be approached a little differently and still work out just fine, and that you will end up enjoying your kids and their athletic and academic pursuits in a little more relaxed state of mind.
Sports is about fun, passion, and playfully acquiring a mindset and meta-skills the kids may be able to put to good use by contributing to society later in their lives.
So let’s start with our number one advice to other parents: “Don’t listen to any other advice, not even this one.” You and your kids know and feel best what you enjoy and what works for you.
SUCCESS MEANS TRY AGAIN
If the kids fail, we make no big deal out of it. Part and parcel of success. Debrief, try again. They learn motor skills 5 to 10 times faster, anyway. We only dis approve of giving up too early for no good reason. Sometimes a little push or encouragement is ok even though we are very clear that eventually the motivation and determination to overcome obstacles has to come from within.
FLY WITH THE CHAMPIONS
Besides learning from the best, being around top performers has had the effect that the kids accept that success at the highest level is a real possibility and mainly a function of following through on their passion. We believe that what would limit the outlook of the boys is not so much what they are but what they believe they are not. So the more "normal" working towards top performance is, the more likely it becomes part of their world view and outlook.
SELF-MOTIVATED LEARNING
We said to Max, ”If you want to travel to race events around the world and rise to the top of your sport, sitting in a normal classroom during most of the year probably won’t get you there. Hence you will have to work on an alternative path and will have to figure out how to organise your own learning efforts a little earlier that most other boys. Other kids will have to learn it by 18 or 20 years old. You will have just to figure it out and find the motivation for it in yourself a few years earlier. Exceptional performance requires exceptional efforts.”
Inculcating independence
Should we let a 12-year-old travel along to a training competition venue in Mexico for three weeks, without coach or parents?
We started by asking Max if he felt he could handle it. If he can't, he'd tell us.
Kids and Trust
Where the approach of our family probably differs most from the mainstream is on the topic of trust. Of trust in the abilities of the kids, of giving more space to let the kids live out the consequences of self-motivated action or inaction from early on. We feel that if we want to raise kids who trust in their own abilities, we want to trust in them first.
It is the same with decisions. We spend the time to explain things in depth, tell them how things are connected, so that they can have a go at informed decisions. We try to raise decision makers, so we let them make their own decisions and roll with the consequences. They will soon develop a good sense of what works and what hurts. We love them and seek to protect them from irreversible damage, of course. Still, if we let them learn to cycle without auxiliary wheels, they will fall a few times but they will also very quickly get better at it.
Max travelled with us from young and observed our interactions with other people. He knows how trustworthy people look and feel when we point out our considerations on many occasions. Max knows who is going to such kiteboarding competitions, and he will meet other competitors the moment he arrives. Sure enough, it has worked out just fine.
Do we pack the kids’ sports equipment? What if without supervision, they forget some piece of equipment when they pack their own bags? Well, we have let Max learn from his mistakes. No doubt, it will cause some hassle, but it has made sure that he would go through the checklist more diligently ever after.
Success means try again
To us, learning means being comfortable with not looking very competent for a good while. For example, we learned the basics of kitefoiling together with Max and especially the tacks and jibes, nimbly balancing on the hydrofoil board and moving the kite just right when changing direction. It gave us ample opportunities to not look very competent for a good while, and still come back with a smile. ☺
Creating a learning-friendly family culture to us means also having the courage to expose ourselves and share about our challenges. So as parents, we try to lead by example: Trying new approaches and going through multiple attempts until things come together. As the kids got a little older, we also started to share more and more about the challenges we are trying to overcome in our lives and our endeavours. We shared even some issues that are worryingly difficult to resolve and how we keep throwing whatever we can at it. Trying to be a good example for the boys actually provided us with some extra determination in overcoming challenges and not giving up.
When it all comes together finally, when after years of trying, we finally achieve a record performance in our own passion or find a way in business matters, we express also how good we feel about it and celebrate. Oh, and we try not be too perfect as parents – it just stresses the kids, haha.
Self-motivated learning
We feel that intrinsic motivation and self-organised (academic) learning is a meta-skill that needs to be learnt and applied just like every other skill. Is it possible for kids to just switch to self-motivated learning after they have been herded and shuttled from one structured and supervised activity to another for most of their childhood?
From what we gathered, even very smart kids recognise that they are unable to self-study in the beginning and will express that they need assistance along their path.
Our kids actually expressed that they do appreciate some guidance especially when it comes to pointing out what is worth learning and how to go about it. But they also know that every kid who goes on to study in a university will have to figure out how to develop their own learning strategies at some point.
Some parents of young athletes are dedicating a lot of their time looking after every aspect of their sporting careers. As much as we enjoy seeing the kids progress, play alongside them and follow their races when we can, such a parent or coach approach has not been for us, as we have simply too many other responsibilities in our lives.
So something which worked well for us was that we approached mature athletes in the late stage of their careers to impart their specific experience and skills, and take our boys under their wings and train with them and race along with them.
We were fortunate to have found a few exceptional people whom we felt good with and could entrust our kids to at different stages of their athletic development. It started from a gut feeling of liking the people and seeing how they live out their values and are able to take responsibility and are more than their titles. The world champion may or may not be the best mentor.
On cramping their style
Telling other people how they should lead their life seems to be one of the most popular sports of all times. It comes naturally and needs little discipline or effort. And kids are the perfect target for grown-ups who like to indulge in this pleasure. After all, few things so need reform like other peoples’ habits, isn’t it?
Well, we did not really enjoy having our parents cramping our style in our childhood. So we figured with our own children, we would try to minimise the nagging and telling each other what to do and let everyone have their space and develop their own style.
As parents, we try instead to be good examples and gently suggest behaviour suitable to get them ahead in life and have other people come their way. It seems to work so far.
Maximillian Maeder, 13, is Singapore’s sole representative at the Games. He started kitefoiling at the age of 10, after he got bored of kitesurfing.
This article was first published on 9 November 2020.