50 Miles From Home

K and I went on a bike ride earlier this week. (Okay, I walked next to him while he pedaled on his bike.) It While the total distance was probably six, maybe seven, miles in total and took probably 30 minutes max, when we got home he weaved a story about how he had gone 50 miles from home. His enthusiasm for his accomplishment was so infectious. I wanted to bottle it up so that I could release it whenever I needed a little encouragement to get through the day.

Throughout the bike ride, I had to keep encouraging him. I wanted it to be more focused on the effort, the fact that he kept pushing on when he wanted to give up. (And there were definitely times -- particularly when going up hills -- that he wanted to give up.) I decided I didn't want to reward him for just having great results, I wanted to reward him for the effort that he put forth more. Perseverance is something that we need to encourage our children to develop. In this society where instant gratification has become such a way of life, I'm afraid when they have to work toward something and the reward is not readily apparent, it will be too easy for them to give up. And well ... if sometimes they have to skew the results a little and say it was 50 miles instead of 7 blocks ... I think it's okay ... especially when they are only four.