Last week we confronted the stunning 75 percent marker; that is, 75

percent of the time you will spend with your child is over by the time he or

she turns 12 years old.

Full disclosure: I didn’t know this when my sons were young. But. I was

fortunate to know intuitively that getting to a kid early and often was key.

If you’re giving him or her the drill at 4 years old, they are unlikely to

become, in the elegant words of my neighborhood pal decades ago, “a

freakin’ little monster.” So much for eloquence. But it’s a truth that

endures.

Hence, here’s your crucial parenting window for teaching and guiding

personal conduct, confidence, resilience and ambition in your sons and

daughters. Not only does this undertaking require tactics that are

constantly reinforced, it requires articulating these concepts in the right

fashion.

And this is where come up against the true and real day to day mechanics,

far away from the airy fairy reaches of Platitude Land.

My own mechanics in driving home the values above were basic and

simple and are explained in my book, Four Lessons from My Three Sons.

I began this way….

Beginning when the eldest was in first grade, I took great care in

explaining to each kid individually in the simplest terms possible the basic

qualities to which I wanted them to aspire. Where and How were key.

Of course, young kids are not built to absorb high-sounding lectures on

integrity, self-assurance, and aspirations. No kid is going to understand

that stratospheric approach, however earnest a parent might be. But you

can get through to them in a basic way and to do so you start simply. Here

they are below and perhaps you’ll find them a good starting point as you

put it all together for you and your child.

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Explanations in Solitude

The Where: In this halcyon world, you must have your child’s full,

undivided attention. This rules out a room in the house or the backyard

porch or a restaurant or a shopping mall or driving somewhere in a car.

None of these places provides the total calm and isolation necessary.

That’s why I settled on an ideal place of peace and quiet and no

distractions: A Saturday morning in the bleachers fronting the fields of our

local high school, a poignant venue where there was only the two of us.

The How: As we sat together I would engage them first with simple

conversation about easy subjects from their everyday life (as described at

the top of Chapter 3 in my book). Then I’d gently guide the talk to the

main elements of a kid’s life: School, friends, sports, their siblings. These

self-style Bleacher Reports became a fond ritual – every two or three

weeks for each kid. And let me note here these meetings with my sons

persist to this day when they are home from various military deployments

and duties.

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Fearless Judging

If you’ve read my book or blogs or listening to my sometimes outrageous podcasts, you’ve

probably been either mildly surprised or totally outraged. Good – that’s the

point. As I said in the book’s Preface, I don’t live in a temporizing, hand-

wringing, enabling fantasy world - where individuals grasp their “own

truths” as they huddle in “safe spaces,” where “privilege” is constantly

being “checked” and everyone yearns for “more me time!”

I live in that real world where there is no “magic” as Colin Powell says,

where there is a mix of true success and confusion and major

disappointments, where daily life demands decent behavior and humor and

grit, where kids (and adults) must learn to strive and succeed or quickly

get back up again after failing.

My worldview often involves judgments – good and bad – about people,

places and things. Which is exactly how I operated when my boys and I

were out and about in the every-day life I treasure. No, my head wasn’t

constantly on a swivel seeking allegories and metaphors in everything and

everyone. I knew that if I went overboard with non-stop commentary I’d

lose my sons’ attention That would have been pointless. I was selective.

And the book, blogs and podcasts all document incidents of yours truly

evaluating individuals and situations for yes, the benefit of my sons. From

which I gradually got their buy-in.

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Persistence

I never, ever stopped exhorting. In order for my principles to be absorbed,

they had to be sustained over days and weeks and months and years. And

no, I didn’t get through to the boys all the time. But I do know kids and I

know most face the same basic challenges. A kid’s life doesn’t have too

many original elements to it; like I said above – school, friends, sports,

siblings and family. A parent knows the arena and thus can consistently

know what a son or daughter is facing.

Finally, it cannot be said enough so I’ll say it again: You’re the parent.

You’re the leader. You’re in control. You are in charge. Kids don’t know

best. You do. Every Mom and Dad has the experience of being a young

child amongst the patterns of everyday life and knows what works and

what doesn’t.

As I said at the very beginning of my book, this life and world offer up

countless situations for anyone paying attention. That world is out there

for you to navigate with your child, that world you can use to build

character, confidence, and ambition in your kids.

I trust you now have some new ideas on how you can spur resilience in

your sons and daughters. Now it’s up to you to prove me right.