Let them be

My little one has been in Kung Fu for a little while now, and I was ecstatic when she said she wanted to try it out. I have always taken the position to support and let her try whatever interest she decides to partake and let her discover it on her own. If she enjoys it and wants to excel, then all the power to her and I will help no matter what. If she wants. Not because I feel it is my right to. If she chooses not to, so be it. I have no interest in forcing my daughter to continue something she doesn't like. I also don't think its healthy to stand over her and constantly bark out what she is doing wrong, forcing her to practice and then of course the lecturing all the way too and from class. I feel that would stunt the creativity and remove the life lessons of discipline,challenge, defeat, triumph, self confidence, and of course setting her own life path that she absolutely needs in order to evolve and mature properly with out me taking that experience away or shielding her from it. I also did not want to install a type of resentment towards me because perhaps I lacked patience or smothered her when she was trying to learn and out of my own selfishness and not letting a kid be a kid regardless of the interest she observes. I mean shes 8 years old and has a long road of discovery ahead. But what a better tool could be introduced than Kung Fu to help her see ahead and handle obstacles. Although this interest was a little different because her Dad practices it too, but I still wanted to keep my distance and see what transpires. I felt that the only way to really see if she takes to Kung Fu or not was to let her find the bug and learn on her own and patiently see if she would approach me for help. Sometimes there were moments of struggle to not tell her what she was doing right or wrong or pay attention and stop jack assing around. In other words, stop being a kid and you will be a little satellite of me. Not cool. So the only intervention I really imposed was the praise of what she did do, and did you do your Kung Fu homework. A few times I did ask her if she was really that interested or are you doing this just for dad. She told me she still liked training but may want to go back to being a cheer leader. She missed it. So I thought well lets see what happens. Much like Sifu Masterson's observations of her son, I thought perhaps I should just pull her out because she was fooling around and didn't really seem that interested, then something changed. As I watched her I seen she was trying alot harder and you could see progress in her form. She was telling me how very excited she was that she was going to be in the banquet demos. She started to practice more at home. Cool the installation of a goal. One night I heard this little voice coming from down stairs shouting every step of Hsiegh Chien, and then the moment I was waiting for, my little one looking up at me asking if I would come see how she knows the whole form and would I help. I couldn't help but beam with pride. So a few nights here and there we are practicing our forms together with the goal of doing our best for the banquet. Throwing in push ups and sittups and some other training. I still tread lightly but am grateful for stepping back and witnessing young discovery. For letting her be.
Brian Chervenka