B as in Brave….

Next week we will be celebrating the "International Day of Women and Girls in Science", so today I want to state some facts and curiosities about bravery: Maria Montessori, for her time, was a very “brave” woman who defied and broke the paradigm that stated that “only men were able to go to college and study medicine”. Maria Montessori was brave enough to succeed and become the first female doctor in Italy, on top of creating a whole new education philosophy that she totally believed in and still stands today…she was in all, brave enough to stand by her passion and stick to it!!

Also, I wanted to mention my mom…. more than 65 years ago she married my dad and they, together, started a pretty amazing, adventurous and “brave” journey; she had only left her native city of The Hague during the war, because my grandparents were not able to manage during those difficult times; when she got married, she had never been outside The Netherlands. She only did so to “embark” in this incredible journey with my dad when the KLM send him to work in New Guinea, by that time a Dutch Colony, located on the other side of the world…. I know, it sounds like “old/ancient history and…. far away”, and yes! it really was! My parents were “Brave”, especially my mom. She went with him, leaving everything behind and going to a country that was located to the north of Australia, on an almost 24 hour long flight away and where she did not know anybody, nor anything that was awaiting for her; in those times the only way to communicate was by mail, and that service , well, was not always so good or smooth; the news about the birth of my oldest sister reached my grandparents in the form of a “telegram”, a word that only exists in  dictionaries nowadays, (or maybe it sounds familiar as the name of an App) and the first time my grandparents “saw” my sisters was on a black and white picture….(notice that my two sisters were born in New Guinea, and that, just that, on itself is a HUGE accomplishment!!)

When we talk about being “Brave”, the meaning of the word would be: “having the courage to face any situation or difficulty” …To become brave, we need to learn to tolerate feeling scared and not let fear hold us back. For children feeling scared, almost always goes hand in hand with new or challenging situations; in my previous post on Attachment, I mentioned about how the “serve and return” experiences with parents and other caregivers or even teachers, are so important for children to have a “secure attachment”, meaning they  “need a close adult who will function as a secure base from which to explore the world, and who will be a safe haven to retreat in times of stress”, in other words, they need the security to feel that they will be able to succeed, even when they are scared, and that feeling scared is totally ok!!

Children need to be able to identify their feelings and receive acknowledgement, understanding, and comfort when they convey these feelings to an adult; a child whose feeling is ignored or denied or who is made to feel embarrassed is left kind of “alone” with an upsetting emotion and does not learn to seek help when needed; we as parents and caregivers need to acknowledge it and show them how to manage it; sometimes fear is appropriate, and this keeps the child safe; sometimes it is unfounded, and we can help a child discover this by experiencing the situation together; and sometimes it must be tolerated, in which case we offer close physical and emotional contact with the child, thus helping them bear it. Above all we want our children to know that we will be attentive to all of their feelings-positive or negative, that we all experience these feelings, and build their confidence in their coping ability, so they will be able to say:

“When I feel scared, I know what to do!”. (Cornelia Maud Spellman, “When I feel scared”, Note to parents).

There are a few things that we as adults can do to cultivate this feeling of “I can do it” in our children; in fact one of the best known quotes that we as Montessori teachers learn while in training is the one that reads: “Help me to learn to do it on my own”….Independence, security and motivation are features that are important when we want to foster bravery and courage in our children. Some of the ways to do this can be the following:

• Model courage and bravery…. (My mom did that when she started the adventurous journey with my dad). Let your child see you step out of your comfort zone; then express how good it feels when you conquer your fear instead of taking a shortcut. Your kids will learn how to take on the tough challenges they face by witnessing how you tackle your fears.
• Talk about values and courage; examples and stories of bravery and courage are plenty; make these stories relatable, share stories of your own experiences and express how you felt when tackling the obstacles. With these stories they can feel encouraged when facing a similar obstacle.
• Give your children the opportunity to find solutions for their challenges. Always “fixing” children’s problems only makes them more dependent and reduces their ability to bravely seek their own solutions.
• Fear can be overwhelming. Teach your child simple strategies to be brave. “I can handle this” or “I have courage to do this”, are two simple frases they can repeat in their minds or teach your child to take slow, deep breaths to find courage.

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