I was full of admiration for my 4 year old as she tried out ski school for the first time recently:
She set off (admittedly with a tiny wobble of both lip and legs) with a group of French children, in a completely new environment, to learn a specialised skill, under the guidance of an unknown instructor, in a class which was conducted almost entirely in a foreign language!
Even for a confident adult, that combination would be a daunting prospect and yet, when I collected her a few hours later, she had the most enormous smile on her face, founded in a huge sense of achievement and a newly discovered passion for skiing.
It was undoubtedly a proud mummy moment: but also one that made me think about those times in my own life when the situation before me has seemed overwhelming, scary and impossible to navigate and yet, despite difficult odds, I have taken a deep breath, faced it full on and even found myself smiling too (well, some of the time!).
‘If you’re not falling over, you’re not trying hard enough’ my 4 year old sagely declared. And she is right. If we all remain within our comfort zone all the time, then we will never discover the full extent of what we can achieve.
My little girl did fall. Many times. But after one particular fall, she got up smiling and said, ‘I don’t know how to do it… yet. But I will learn.’ Again, I was taken aback by the simplicity and confidence of this statement.
It is amazing what we can learn from our children.
What have you learned from a child?
